ARISS is 15

ARISS is 15

15 years ago today, on December 21, 2000, students at Burbank School in
Burbank Illinois, U.S.A. lined us and readied themselves for a very historic
event---the first school contact with the crew on the International Space
Station.  ARISS mentor and radio operator Charlie Sufana, AJ9N and his team
of volunteers had aptly prepared the students, teachers and the public in
attendance for their historic contact.  As AOS approached, Charlie began
calling NA1SS.  Soon, Expedition 1 Commander Bill "Shep" Shepherd, KD5CDL
answered back and the students immediately began asking Shep their
questions.  The rest is history.

Burbank school teacher, Rita Wright, who later became KC9CDL, continues to
be active in ARISS as a volunteer.  Rita's 2004 AMSAT Symposium paper,
"Remember, We're Pioneers!" chronicles the Burbank school's journey to the
first ARISS contact and beyond.  You are invited to download the paper at
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8cmd0eu9y0imsz/REMEMBER--Burbank%20School.pdf?dl
=0>
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8cmd0eu9y0imsz/REMEMBER--Burbank%20School.pdf?dl=


With this historic event in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to
thank our volunteers from the ARISS operations team for their outstanding,
long term support to ARISS.  These folks---our mentors, telebridge operators
and operations leaders---are the foundation of ARISS.   They have made
nearly 1000 ARISS contacts successful since Burbank, 15 years ago.  Without
them, the goals of ARISS: inspiration, exploration, education and
experimentation, could not be achieved.  Their guidance, mentoring and
presentations, before, during and after the contact were crucial in
achieving these goals.  Thank you all!!

As the ARISS team prepares for 2016, with many schools in the queue,
prepared, ready and waiting for their upcoming contacts, ARISS is gearing up
for another historic event---our 1000th school contact.  Wow!  1000 ARISS
contacts!!  To celebrate this historic event, I would ask those that know of
an ARISS student that has graduated and is now in a science, technology,
engineering or mathematics (STEM) field to please have them share their
story with us.  Please pass this along to others and have them send their
stories to me at ka3hdo@verizon.net or to our web master at ariss@arrl.org.
We would like to compile these for our space agency customers and to share
the stories with the amateur radio community.

Thanks es 73,

Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO
ARISS International Chair
SOURCE DIRECTE :   ARISS
From :  Alan f6agv (@) free.fr