ARISS

School Selection Committee

Terms of Reference

Approved by the ARISS Chair,  February 28, 2002


revised 2012-10-09 

1.     Foreword

The NASA Human Space Flight Web page features, under the heading Ham Radio, the following statement:

More than 40 missions over five years will be required to assemble the International Space Station in orbit. The astronauts and cosmonauts will work hard on these missions, but they plan to take some time off for educational outreach contacts with schools. NASA's Division of Education is a major supporter of the amateur radio activity.

As the International Space Station takes its place in the heavens, the amateur radio community is prepared to do its part by helping to enrich the experience of those visiting and living on the station.

ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) is in charge of providing the expected educational outreach service from the amateur radio community to the space explorers on board ISS.

A major aspect of this service is to organize, to implement and to control school contacts. Space time is a limited and most precious commodity. Careful planning, feasibility checking, selection and follow up are a must.

In order to assure the service, ARISS has set up an Educational Outreach/School Selection Committee. The present Terms of Reference describe the duties and the operational processes of the Educational Outreach/School Selection Committee (hereinafter referred to as the “Committee”).  

2.     Members, Chair and Meeting

a. The Committee shall consist of one voting member from each ARISS region who shall be appointed yearly by the ARISS delegates from that region and shall serve at the pleasure of those delegates.

b. The Chair of the Committee shall be elected yearly by the committee members.

c. Names of the Chair and members of the Committee shall be posted to the ARISS Web page.

d. The Committee shall meet by teleconference approximately once a month, or more often if the situation dictates. The Committee meeting may be held in person when it is available.  

3.     Responsibility

a. The Committee shall provide the Operations Committee with enough schools for at least the next three months.

b. The Committee shall clearly identify the person they authorize to provide requests to the Operations Committee.

c. Special on-the–air events must be bona fide educational activities, having on file an official ARISS application and educational proposal, and approved unanimously by the Committee.

(Note 1: The Operations Committee reserves the right to determine the order of contacts to fit operational constraints such as orbital mechanics and crew schedule, and to determine if contacts are implemented as direct or as telebridge contacts.)

(Note 2: The Operations Committee receives official ARISS school applications from ISS crew members normally through the space agencies. The Operations Committee shall keep the Educational Outreach/School Selection Committee apprised of these contacts.)

d. The Committee is responsible for assuring that third party and other regulatory issues are settled before submitting a school to the Operations Committee.

e. The Committee shall select schools to be equally allocated among: Europe, Russia, USA, Japan, Canada, and schools selected for QSOs by ISS crew members.

f. The Committee shall submit schools annotated with suggested order of implementation to the Operations Committee.

g. If an ARISS country does not have a school ready, it may “denote” its slot to one of the other ARISS partners or sponsor contacts from non-ARISS countries.

h. The Committee’s task covers:

 i. The Committee makes a pre-selection of the applications (see 5.).

j. The Chair of the Committee submits the school selections (see 6.).   

4.     School Application Form

a. An official ARISS school application form must be filled out and submitted along with an educational proposal prior to the Committee initiating the selection process. This application form is intended to gather the data required for preparing a successful school contact.

b. The official ARISS school application form is downloadable from the ARISS Web page: http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov/Application/

c. Amateur Radio societies are asked to refer to this official form when circulating information about ARISS school contacts to their members.  

5.     School Pre-selection

The Committee members shall evaluate applications, taking into account the following criteria:

·        official ARISS school application form properly completed

·        technical possibilities and preparedness

·        educational project or proposal

·        third party issues  

6.     School Selection

a. The Chair of the Committee keeps a permanent list of pending applications. The applications are listed taking into account the following data:

·        time stamp of the application

·        special status

·        language to be used during the contact

·        direct contact or telebridge (The latter are used when third party issues are problematic, if school equipment isn’t adequate to ensure success, or if orbits are not during school hours.)

  b. The resulting list shall be negotiated with space agencies by the Operations Committee. 

c. The Chair of the Committee shall circulate the lists of pending applications by e-mail to the Chair of the Operations Committee when applications are needed to fill time slots.

d. In case the order of listed contacts is drastically modified, the Chair of the Committee shall give the reason to the Chair of the Operations Committee.  

7.         Modification of the List of Pending Applications

a. The Committee members can ask for modifying the list of pending applications. The request is to be justified.

b. The Committee members can oppose a listed school contact, but must give justification.

c. The Chair of the Committee can oppose the listing of an application, but must give justification.

d. In case of conflict between the Committee members or between the Chair of the Committee and a Committee member, if no consensus can be reached, the ARISS Chairperson, having consulted the ARISS board, shall make the decision.

  

8.     Reporting

a. The Committee members shall insist that schools where a contact has been successfully completed, shall fill out a required NASA evaluation form, and provide a report on the QSO.

b. NASA’s evaluation form is at: https://neeis.gsfc.nasa.gov/JDbGenie/vol1/htdocs/edcats/user_ariss_report.html

 c.  The report shall be well documented and cover:

·        the implementation on the educational project

·        media impact

·        cooperation with local authorities  

d. The report will be given to the ARISS Webmaster for the ARISS Web page.

                       

Educational Outreach / School Selection Membership 2011

Rosalie White, K1STO  k1sto@arrl.org
Maurice-André Vigneault, VE3VIG ve3vig@amsat.org
Francesco De Paolis, IK0WGF  school.selection.manager@amsat.it
Valeriy Agabekov, UA6HZ/N2WW n2ww@arrl.net
Keigo Komuro, JA1KAB iaru-r3@jarl.or.jp 

Link to School selection committee minutes

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