NORFOLK — Slover Library will be the site for a live downlink event from the International Space Station on Aug. 9 where students can communicate with astronauts in real time.
As a part of the ISS’s Exedition 60, the connection will be made for a 20-minute time period between noon – 2 p.m. — when astronauts can communicate live with Earth by sending data through a set of satellites to antennas on the ground
Approximately 200 young space enthusiasts will convene in Slover Library’s sixth floor Community Engagement Room to ask NASA astronaut Christina Koch questions about what it is like to live in space.
Koch will be setting the record for the longest consecutive days a woman has been in space during this expedition, with a mission scheduled to last 328 days.
Students will also participate in many space-related, hands-on STEM activities.
The local kids at Slover Library and other Norfolk Public Libraries will be joined by children from libraries all over the country, thanks to this NASA education program and its connection to Space Science Institute’s STAR Library Network (STAR NET) and its NASA@ My Library program, officials said in a news release.
Those programs are managed by SSI’s National Center for Interactive Learning.
Spanning Expedition 59 and Expedition 60, the ISS crew members will spend more than six months conducting about 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences, and technology development.
Seventy-five of the investigations are new and have never been performed in space.
Some of the investigations are sponsored by the U.S. National Laboratory on the space station, which Congress designated in 2005 to maximize its use for improving quality of life on Earth.
Highlights of upcoming investigations the crew will support include devices that mimic the structure and function of human organs, free-flying robots, and an instrument to measure Earth’s distribution of carbon dioxide.
To learn more about Expedition 60 and its crew, click here.
