International space station hook-up planned with Australian Air League cadets – ABC Online

Posted May 29, 2017 07:00:22

When Australian Air League cadets get a rare chance to speak with the crew of the orbiting International Space Station this week, they will have a precise window of time for their conversation.

Organiser Marc Lelliott said it was important they did not waste time with well-worn questions of the space adventurers.

"The only thing NASA says is to get the cadets not to ask how the astronauts go to the toilet," he laughed.

"Apparently that's one of the more common ones. We can talk about whatever else we want to talk about."

The link on Wednesday evening, between the aviation museum at Port Adelaide and the space station, will be precise in duration, Mr Lelliott said.

"[The space station] will actually be over Santa Rosa in America, we'll have 10 minutes and 38 seconds exactly," he said.

"We're going to use what's called a telebridge, which is like a speaker phone really.

"A phone line is plugged into it, NASA will ring us at the museum, once that is established they will transfer our call to a ground station at Santa Rosa, they will convert the signal into radio and beam it up to the space station."

Cadets across Adelaide submitted potential questions, they were judged and culled into a final list and this was formally submitted, to give the astronauts and cosmonauts a chance to prepare answers and make best use of the window of time.

Mr Lelliott said the hook-up would be truly international.

"You've got 20 Australian cadets, a French astronaut who will be in the Russian segment of the space station, in orbit over America," he said.

Cadets also spoke with the space station team back in 2014.

"That worked reasonably well, the antenna they used on the station was partially covered by a solar panel so the signal wasn't perfect," Mr Lelliott said.

"But it was good enough to hear the astronaut and he was able to hear the cadets."

This week's hook-up starts at 7:05pm ACST on Wednesday.

Topics: space-exploration, science-and-technology, education, community-organisations, community-and-society, astronomy-space, port-adelaide-5015, adelaide-5000, sa, australia, united-states

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International space station hook-up planned with Australian Air League cadets - ABC Online