The successful splashdown of the all-ham Ax-4 astronaut crew on the SpaceX Dragon “Grace” in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego early on the morning of July 15 after an 18-day stay on the ISS marked another successful chapter in the evolving story of amateur radio in commercial space.

ARISS has been a partner for all four Axiom Space flights to the ISS, dating back to the Ax-1 in 2022, and three of the four missions to date have featured all-ham crews. Our participation in Ax-4 aligned with our broader goal of using amateur radio to connect youth, educators, and members of the public with the International Space Station.

And connect we did! Ax-4’s three first-time astronauts—Shubhanshu Shukla (VU2TNI), Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski (SQ7AS) and Tibor Kapu (HA5TRO)—used the ISS’s onboard ham radio to talk with students and others in their home countries during six pre-planned contacts.

Tibor Kapu (HA5TRO) made two 10-minute contacts with students in Hungary via K6DUE.
On July 3, he talked with four groups in Budapest including the Hungarian Scout Association, three technical schools and a high school. Tibor answered 20 youth questions. More than 50 people came in person to the locations to witness the event live, and the scouts created and posted a video recording on Facebook that has 3,100 views and counting.
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The Hungarian Scout Association speaks with Tibor Kapu
Credit: Hungarian Scout Association
On July 9, Tibor talked with students, faculty and visitors at the Mobolis Interactive Science Center in Győr. He answered 16 student questions during the event, which drew 150 enthusiasts, ranging from 6 to 99 years old. There were also 2,500 people watching the event remotely via livestream.

Shubhanshu Shukla (VU2TNI) made two 10-minute contacts with students in India via K6DUE.
On July 4, he answered 13 student questions from an audience of 565 people at the UR Rao Satellite Centre at Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The Center reported that 22 other education groups throughout India participated in some way with the event. Space India live-streamed the contact and posted to YouTube, accumulating 6,500 views in one week.

On July 8, Shubhanshu spoke to an audience at the North Eastern Space Applications Centre in Shillong, Meghalaya, India, answering 19 student questions. One person in attendance said “the ARISS school contact was thrilling and inspiring, especially for the students—it was a moment they will cherish for a long time.”

Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski (SQ7AS) made two 10 minutes contacts with students in Poland, also via K6DUE.
On July 4 he answered questions from a group of nearly 500 people assembled at the University of Wroclaw, including reporters from eight TV stations. During the contact, he answered 11 student questions. A recording of the event on YouTube was viewed by more than 20,000 people.
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A student asks a question at the University of Wroclaw
Credit: University of Wroclaw
On July 5, Sławosz spoke with a group of more than 400 people at the Rzeszow University of Technology in Rzeszow, Poland, where he answered 16 student questions. On Facebook, a video of the event captured the imagination of nearly 60,000 viewers on Facebook and 10,000 on YouTube. Four TV stations provided coverage of the contact along with three radio stations and four newspapers.

Interest in the ham contacts and the mission in general was high based on ARISS social media feeds, where eight of top 10 posts on X over the past month were related to Ax-4. On ARISS’s Facebook page, 10 of the top 20 posts for the last month were related to Ax-4. In general, there were two to three times more viewers of Ax-4 posts than the typical ARISS posts.
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Ax-4 crew during a farewell ceremony with the ISS crew on July 13
Credit: Axiom Space / SpaceX
Find out more about ARISS and our upcoming ham radio adventures in space at our website www.ariss.org and on our social media feeds at Facebook, X, and YouTube.