May 1, 2025—Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact between an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and students at the Girton Grammar School located in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. ARISS conducts 60-100 of these special amateur radio contacts each year between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses aboard the ISS.
This ARISS contact is hosted by the Wireless Institute of Australia AGM and Technology Expo for participating students from Girton Grammar School. Girton Grammar School (founded in 1884) is an independent, coeducational school for grades Prep through Year 12.

This will be a telebridge Contact via Amateur Radio allowing students to ask their questions of astronaut Takaya Onishi, amateur radio call sign KF5LKS. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHz and may be heard by listeners that are within the ISS-footprint that also encompasses the telebridge station.

The ARISS amateur radio ground station (telebridge station) for this contact is in Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S. The amateur radio volunteer team at the ground station will use the callsign K6DUE, to establish and maintain the ISS connection.

The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for May 3, 2025 at 9:12 pm AEST (Bendigo, Australia) (11:12: 24 UTC, 7:12 am EDT, 6:12 am CDT, 5:12 am MDT, 4:12 am PDT).

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As time allows, students will ask these questions:

1. In zero gravity, how do your muscles adapt to weightlessness? Can you feel them at all?
2. What’s something you learned during your training or spaceflight that made you view science or exploration differently?
3. How did your perspective on the Earth and life itself change after you reached space?
4. How do you work, live and communicate with people when you’re having a bad day?
5. What’s the craziest thing you’ve learnt about space whilst in space.?
6. What is it like to carry out others experiments while in the ISS, how explicit do the instructions need to be.
7. Are there any living organisms, other than humans and plants on the ISS?
8. What recent advancements in technology have improved the conditions for the astronauts on the ISS and is there something in particular that would improve conditions even more?

9. What precautions do you take to ensure that everything runs smoothly, and how are you trained to handle problems in the event that something malfunctions?
10. Hi, I sometimes get panic attacks and anxiety, and I can’t even imagine how intense it must be to live in space! Do astronauts ever get anxious up there? And if so, how do you handle it? Any cool space-approved tips for staying calm when things feel overwhelming? (Also, floating around must be the best stress relief ever!)
11. What’s the most surprising or unexpected thing you’ve experienced while living on the International Space Station, that you never could have imagined before you got there?
12. After leaving Earth and being a part of one of humanity’s biggest technological advancements, what is your outlook towards potential future technologies such as lightspeed travel?
13. What excites you most about the future of space exploration?