Cameron Knight

cknight@enquirer.com

Since the 1990s, talking to a friend 250 miles away has been as simple as reaching into your pocket for your phone. But it turns out when that friend is 250 miles over your head, things are still complicated. Really complicated.

On Saturday after a year of preparation, students at iSpace coordinated with a team of amateur radio operators in two different countries. They had each rehearsed exactly what they were going to say. They were going to talk Kate Rubins orbiting the planet in the International Space Station.

A non-profit providing science, technology, education and math, iSpace recently moved to a new building on the Scarlet Oaks campus in Sharonville. In their new facility, about 100 people gathered to watch the conversation.

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) facilitated the contact. A moderator from Alberta, Canada called into the "telebridge" to connect the student with a team of three radio operators in Italy.

A live stream of the Italian station showed a bank of equipment and moving antenna that tracked the ISS as passed over at 17,500 miles per hour.

The Italians called out to Rubins when the ISS got in range. Just static. They called out again, and Rubins' reply was met with fist pumps and wide smiles by the students. But the celebration was short, they only had 10 minutes to talk.

"I know you use animals in research," 6-year-old Sarah McAllister said deliberately into the microphone. "How many animals do you have in space right now, and how do you take care of them? Over."

Rubin replied that during the last SpaceX mission, mice were brought on board and fed and watered daily.

The students approached the microphone one at time and managed to fit 18 answers and replies into the 10 minute period.

"Awesome! It went to plan," said 14-year-old Chris Brault, son of Jocelyn Brault of Liberty Township.

Brault with the West Chester Amateur Radio Association, acted as the amateur radio operator onsite to help coordinate with the telebridge. He and his wife signed their two sons up for iSpace. Chris has been participating since 1st grade learning about space, how to code, built robots and participating in other STEM activities.

iSpace organizers were only told two weeks ago that they had obtained a time slot to communicate with the ISS, and they were only told six days in advance when that time slot would be.

Sarah, daughter of Amy McAllister of Maderia, said that after speaking with an astronaut she would love to become an astronaut, but admitted that it would be "super hard."

Brault hopes to continue connecting students to the ISS. For him and the West Chester Amateur Radio Association, the next step is building a station to make direct contacts with the space station and open it to all the school in the Cincinnati area through the ARISS program.

Amateur radio operators under the path of the ISS can listen to and occasionally speak with crew members using their own setups. At least two operators in Europe were able to listen in to Rubins' responses, however, they were unable to pick the Italian transmission of the questions.