Staffer Helps Students Speak with Space Station

Last month, 12 students had the chance to speak live with an astronaut on board the International Space Station (ISS). As the space traveler passed over P-TECH high school in Paterson, N.J., he held an eight-minute conversation with the young people, one of three U.S.-based institutions for this window of earth-to-orbit communications.

The event was part of a joint effort by the school district and the nearby Fair Lawn Amateur Radio Club (FLARC) which works with NASA’s Amateur Radio on the Space Station (ARISS) program. ASME Strategy Manager Robert “Sky” Marchini, an amateur (ham) radio operator who is FLARC’s youth outreach officer, worked with their team to make the out-of-this-world two-way conversation possible.

Installation and more

To make sure the project ran smoothly, being able to manage a lot of “moving parts” was essential, Marchini explained. Anything could go wrong on the day of the event, but the real work began weeks before to eliminate antenna issues, radio problems, and power challenges. The radio operator helped with everything from coordinating with school leadership to helping the club’s on-site technical team.

This program is managed by an international consortium of amateur radio groups and allows students worldwide to speak directly with astronauts to learn more about space technologies and communications. The students only have a brief window when the ISS is in position in the sky to receive a call.  The station is roughly the size of an Amazon warehouse and travels through the sky at about 17,000 miles an hour. 

“There are plenty of details that need to be done before and during a conversation with a space station,” Marchini said. “We had to pull five separate runs of 200 feet of cabling through a drop ceiling and to a roof hatch,” they explained, describing installing a huge antenna on top of the roof and making the necessary connections. They admit that for a wireless hobby, amateur radio has “a lot of cables.” 

With a goal to bring science to life, Marchini joined fellow FLARC members Steve Holly, Noel Pagan, Doug Faley, and Ria Jairam in coordinating months of preparation with Carlos Miranda, who manages the school’s planetarium. “We wanted to bring something special to them, something you can’t buy, that very few people in the world can say they’ve done, to try and ignite an interest in science and engineering and show it's open to everyone,” Marchini said. “We want to help these students, reach for the stars.”

Kid’s talk

On the day of contact, the team operated the main and backup station, live stream, and taping the event. Marchini worked with the students who, in turn, each asked questions of the fighter pilot turned astronaut, Kimiya Yui. Questions covered topics such as life in microgravity and Earth’s stewardship. And of course one of the questions got an answer from the astronaut that included a poop comment, “which the kids found hilarious,” Marchini said.

Yui also addressed the need to consider soft skills as well when he encouraged the students to work together. He highlighted the importance of cooperation in space missions as one of the four members of Crew-11, a team that boarded ISS in August. He told the student his work includes examining the conditions of microgravity to prepare someday for a manned voyage to Mars. The crew is also studying protein crystals that may improve medicines.

Marchini, who holds the amateur radio callsign KD2SOG, hopes that some of the student also consider becoming ham radio operators. “[Radio operating offers] a lot of cool experiences that many folks don’t know about—you can talk with people all over the world,” they explained. “The best part of the project [for me] was hearing the astronaut’s voice come over the radio,” Marchini explained. “Which is not guaranteed when working with a ham radio.”

Available to volunteer 

Marchini had a chance to volunteer to help with this exceptional event because ASME allows staff to volunteer and still get paid. The Society encourages staff to become involved in their communities and lend their voluntary support. As an organization which depends on thousands of hours contributed by volunteers, ASME pays it forward by supporting staff in their own volunteer endeavors. Eligible staff are encouraged to take up to three working days with pay, during each fiscal year, to do volunteer work for the charity of their choice. 

“I'm really grateful that ASME offers the chance to volunteer my time for [a one-of-a-kind event like this]. I pretty firmly believe in giving back to the community, and being able to take time off work to do so is not only a nice to have, it’s kind of essential in this case—the kids were only in school for a rehearsal and the contact on a school/work day (we did all the setup/testing on the weekend),” Marchini explained.

The event truly worked toward getting more young people interested in science and engineering. “I don’t consider this to be a day off,” Marchini said. “But very much a ‘day on’—just in a different way.”

Marchini makes the point that science and engineering are often missing from people’s everyday lives. Many individuals, not just students “may feel that they can’t go out there and do something amazing, that’s all been done. What I think about events like this teach is that you can still do amazing things with science and engineering, which are not all solved problems. I hope it ignites an interest in technical fields for these kids. It makes science come alive, it’s not just a textbook,” they explained. 

One of the reasons Marchini became a “ham” is that such operators are not allowed to use the hobby for commercial endeavors. “You can’t monetize this hobby,” they explained. “I feel like there’s a lot of pressure for ‘side hustles’ and monetizing your hobbies these days. Ham radio is still very service-focused, of which this event was just one part.”

Cathy Cecere is membership content program manager.