June 7, 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 Mountain Creek State High School located in Mountain Creek, Queensland, 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.

Mountain Creek State High School has a reputation for outstanding achievements in academic, cultural, leadership, community and sporting programs. The school recognizes that their students require not only a meaningful and relevant curriculum but also a cleverly designed school structure that better integrates the key elements of good pedagogical practice with a pastoral care framework that best supports young people in a rapidly changing world.

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 Casale Monferrato, Italy. The amateur radio volunteer team at the ground station will use the call sign, IK1SLD to establish and maintain the ISS connection.

The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for June 9, 2025 at 6:10:30 pm AEST (Queensland, Australia) (8:10:30 UTC, 4:10 am EDT, 3:10 am CDT, 2:10 am MDT, 1:10 am PDT).

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As time allows, students will ask these questions:
1. What are the goals for your mission and what are you working on to achieve those goals?
2. How often do you speak to people back on Earth?
3. What is the coolest part about being on the ISS?
4. How would you mentally prepare for a spacewalk?
5. If you could bring one item from Earth onboard the ISS—just for comfort or fun—what would it be and why?
6. What was your impression when you first looked at Earth from the space station? Do you feel more connected or distant?
7. What kind of ideas and inventions in future exploration do you think are the most exciting (mars habitats, faster space travel, etcetera)?
8. How do you sleep in zero gravity, and how do you manage your sleep schedule without a normal day-night cycle?
9. How might your experience of space differ to those 100 years from now?
10. Has anything unexpected happened during your time on the ISS?
11. What do you do for exercise each day?
12. What type of tasks does the crew take care of to keep the space station running smoothly?
13. What’s the most unexpected or unusual challenge you’ve faced during your mission, something training didn’t fully prepare you for?
14. On Earth, we often rely on our senses for tasks – but in space, do any of your senses feel heightened or less reliable? Like, does food really taste different?
15. What do you most look forward to when you return to Earth?
16. What’s your favourite way to spend free time, and how often do you get it?
17. I’m thinking about working in aerospace. What career paths should I consider studying?
18. How easy do you think it will be to readjust back to normal life when you return to Earth?
19. What were your jobs before you became Astronauts?
20. How do you keep yourself healthy while living in space and how do you think your muscles will react to gravity when you return?
21. If we eventually live on the Moon or Mars, what do you think will be the biggest lifestyle change humans will have to get used to compared to life on the ISS?
22. What’s something about living in space that most people don’t realize or expect?
23. What are the most exciting experiments/discoveries that YOU have worked on?
24. How long have you been on the ISS and how much longer will you stay, and do you ever find yourself missing Earth?