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1993-05-03
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PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Students from three Southern California schools will have
an opportunity to talk to shuttle astronaut Ron Parise via ham
radio during mission STS-35 set to launch on May 30.
Through efforts coordinated between the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory's Amateur Radio Club, the JPL Teacher Resource Center
and the American Radio Relay League Inc., Owen Robbins and two
other teachers from elementary schools in southeastern Los Angeles
County's ABC Unified School District were selected to conduct an
amateur radio connection with the shuttle crew.
Students who wished to participate submitted questions they
would like to ask of Parise. One student and question were chosen
from each school.
Parise is a payload specialist member of the seven-person crew
which will fly the nine-day Astro-1 mission. A senior scientist in
the Space Observatories Department, Computer Science Corporation
in Silver Spring, Maryland, Parise is a member of the research team
for the ultraviolet telescope, one of the instruments of the Astro
payload, and is also a licensed amateur radio operator (WA4SIR).
Astro-1 is an astrophysics observatory which will operate from
within the cargo bay of space shuttle Columbia during the STS-35
mission.
Sixth grader Dillon Matthew will be asking his question from
Stowers Elementary School in Cerritos. Advising instructor from
Stowers is Robbins, the person principally responsible for
arranging the link-up for all three schools.
Robbins first contacted JPL to find someone to talk
with over the radio about earthquakes. Through Peter McClosky of
the JPL Teacher Resource Center, he arranged for Katherine
Hutton, staff seismologist at Caltech, to participate in an
interview. Following the interview Robbins and McClosky decided to
set up a weekly program during which JPL/Caltech employees are
asked questions about their work by elementary and middle school
students.
They call the program the JPL Amateur Radio Club Educators'
Career Net. The students use Robbins's radio and license and talk
to JPL via the JPL Amateur Radio Club's publicly available
repeater. Through the development of the program, both Owen Robbins
and his wife, Judith Robbins, have become members of the JPL
Amateur Radio Club.
The Career Net frequency is 2024.04 MHZ. Anyone is welcome
to listen in on the conversations which are held on Thursday
afternoons from 1:20 to 2:20. These interviews will be suspended
during summer break, and will resume again this fall.
Robbins's call sign is KB6WYU. The other two teachers also
have ham radio licenses, are participating in the shuttle
interview and regularly take part in the Career Net program.
These teachers are Judith Robbins, call letters KB6WYV,
of Cerritos Elementary School and Larry Mazur, call letters KC6AFJ,
of Carver Elementary School. Chimene Mata, fifth grader, was
selected from Cerritos School. Fourth grader Lisa Gonzales will
represent Cerritos Elementary School.
The shuttle interview will take place at 3 p.m. PDT on day
six of the STS-35 shuttle mission.
For further information contact Owen Robbins at Stowers
Elementary School, (213) 926-2326.
#####
5-16-90 TB
#1311