Sponsorship of an event for primary school children to experience communication with the International Space Station.

We sponsored the “ARISS School Contact” event, which was held on July 29th 2024 and gave children the opportunity to experience communicating with the International Space Station, and supported their interest in amateur radio and space.

ARISS School Contact is a project that uses amateur radio to allow children to communicate with astronauts who are qualified as amateur radio operators and are currently staying on the International Space Station. It is part of NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) educational program, and the event on this day was hosted by the Nara Prefecture Branch of the Japan Amateur Radio League.

As this was the first time this event had been held in Nara Prefecture, we provided the venue, the “ICOM Narayama Laboratory” (Nara City, Nara Prefecture), which is an Icom research and development facility. We also lent out the IC-905 as the amateur radio for communication, and helped with the children's pre-event learning, setting up equipment such as antennas, and running the venue.