Establishing radio contact with the international space station (ISS), as it makes an overhead pass over the Maltese islands, has been in the pipeline for a few years for the ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) MT team. The idea came to fruition on February 15, at Stella Maris College in Gżira, after years of idea conceptualisation, logistics planning –  both locally and ARISS Europe – and dedication from a team of motivated individuals hailing from Malta’s Amateur Radio League (MARL-9H1MRL), coming together with a common goal of establishing contact with the ISS and inspiring the next generation of students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

During the event, hundreds of students witnessed the moment when the ARISS MT team made contact with the NASA astronaut Josh Cassada as the ISS loomed above the horizon at 13:45 local time at a blistering speed of 28,000km/h. A series of pre-prepared questions were asked by 13 students within the 10-minute window of the ISS pass, after which radio contact was lost. The contact event was a first in terms of it being organised in this manner at a local school, and is indeed a triumph in the local promotion of science and technology.

The contact event was a first in terms of it being organised in this manner at a local school, and is indeed a triumph in the local promotion of science and technology

The success of the ISS contact brought ecstatic joy for the ARISS MALTA team, who were coordinating the on-site radio technologies, motorised directional antennas, doppler control, ISS position, and the digital technologies used to provide onsite audiovisuals as well as full live-coverage on YouTube. The event had hundreds of live viewers and participants online who could also comment via chat in real time with the organisers, as the event progressed.

An image taken by NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, a few days after he had participated in the ARISS MT contact event, captioned by himself as ‘Absolutely unreal’. Photo: NASA/Josh Cassada

This was the culmination of months of intense preparations, sketches, trials, failures, team-work, engineering tests and, best of all, friendship of passionate, tech-oriented individuals who wanted to showcase what various types of science and engineering can do through the ARISS programme, inspiring the generation of tomorrow to follow STEM-related subjects.

The team was hit by a disappointing cancellation 24 hours prior to the originally scheduled event in December with Astronaut Koichi Wakata, but the resilient group persevered to have another go two months later, de/reassembling everything and setting the whole complex set-up again in February including full rehearsals of the whole event once again.

Such events serve to inspire students all over the globe, with the ARISS initiative being created by a number of different space agencies and amateur radio organisations all over the globe, including NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, among others. Malta’s event was showcased in various international online articles, including ARISS-EU and AMSAT.

Trevor Sammut [9H5TS] is a member of the Malta Amateur Radio League and a member of ARISS MT team. Josef Borg completed a PhD in Astronomy at the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, and is currently a space bioscience researcher at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Malta as well as secretary for the Astronomical Society of Malta. The ARISS contact event can be replayed online at http://bit.ly/3yXJVSh.

Did you know?

•             The International Space Station holds the record for the largest man-made structure ever to be put in orbit around the Earth. Indeed, it measures about 110 metres end to end and a solar array width of approximately 73 metres. It is also extremely massive, with a total mass of approximately 420,000kg.

•             Five space agencies representing a total of 15 countries operate most of the workings of the ISS. Astronauts hailing from these countries, while on board the ISS, do a lot more than simply floating around in the zero gravity environment, as they are often depicted in pictures. Their schedules are filled to the brim with a number of scientific experiments that they need to support while in orbit, among several other tasks – they follow 18-hour working day schedules.

For more trivia, see: www.um.edu.mt/think.

Sound bites

•             NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) makes yet another discovery: The James Webb Space observatory has been used to carry out observations of a giant exoplanet, which is present in a binary star system, specifically peering into its atmosphere. It found an atmosphere rich in silicate clouds, similar to sand here on Earth. A direct imaging technique was used in this case for the first time with JWST, although the telescope has in the past also obtained spectra of other exoplanets.

Source: https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-exoplanet-gritty-clouds

For more soundbites, listen to Radio Mocha every Saturday at 7.30pm on Radju Malta and the following Monday at 9pm on Radju Malta 2 https://www.fb.com/RadioMochaMalta/.