Students from Tallaght Community School, who participated in the Trinity Access Programme (TAP), are due to be the first Irish students in history to make direct contact with the International Space Station this Friday.
For under 12 minutes, the International Space Station will be travelling directly over the school at 27,600 km/h. Students will use amateur radio equipment to speak to astronaut Mark Vande Hei. In order to facilitate the contact, the Tallaght students will set up a temporary radio station on the grounds, which will include an antennae, two radio systems and a back-line in case of interference. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube.
The opportunity arose as a result of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station programme. This programme, for which Tallaght was one of a few select schools to be chosen, was set up by a voluntary group to educate schools across the world on the work of the International Space Programme.
Tallaght Community School was the first community school in Ireland and opened in 1972. With just over 800 students enrolled, the school teaches science to all junior cycle students. Senior cycle students can choose from physics, biology and chemistry.
The application process was highly competitive, with thousands of schools from across the world applying. Every six months, the application process is open. Schools that are in the home country of the astronauts on board are given 70 per cent of the contact slots. It is therefore extremely difficult for an Irish school to be chosen.
Tallaght Community School was selected because of its Inspiring Science Education initiative. Students are encouraged to be more hands-on with inquiry and favour collaborative-based learning. Teachers at the school are members of the Galileo Teacher Training Programme, which helps teachers incorporate astronomy in the classroom.
To prepare the students for the experience, the school has been running a series of diverse events and extra-curricular lessons across multiple disciplines such as the arts and sciences to take advantage of this incredible opportunity.
In a press statement, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station Radio Technical Co-ordinator Daniel Cussan said that he was “thrilled” that an Irish school was getting this opportunity. “I am delighted to be working with Irish students as they leave their mark in history as the first students to make direct space contact. Not only is it a fantastic feat of ingenuity on behalf of the students and teachers, but it will put Ireland officially on the map for science education at secondary school level”, he said.
