Ten Minutes That Made History: Chile's First Direct ARISS Contact With a Public School

Some milestones only last minutes, but the impact sticks around a lot longer. This is one of those stories.

Chile has just marked its first-ever direct amateur radio contact between a public school and the International Space Station — a moment that lasted exactly 10 minutes, but one the students involved are unlikely to forget any time soon.

A Lesson Delivered From Orbit

Students at Mary Graham Bicentennial High School got to put their prepared questions on space exploration, technology, and microgravity directly to NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, KJ5NIV, operating from the ISS under the callsign NA1SS, as the station passed into visible orbit over Chile.

The ARISS contact, held on 28th September, marked a genuine first: previous ARISS contact with Chilean schools, made five years earlier, had relied on a telebridge connection through a ground station in Belgium rather than a direct link.

Built on a Year of Preparation

This contact came together thanks to the Los Molinos Radio Club, CE2CQ, which first approached the high school about the idea back in 2025. Getting ready for the moment involved installing antennas with automatic tracking rotators tuned to 145.800 MHz, alongside workshops where students learned about the space station itself and the science underpinning the contact they were hoping to make.

A Contact Meant to Lead to More

Even though the ISS moved on quickly, as it always does, the connection it created looks set to last well beyond those ten minutes. Club president Lorenzo Passalacqua, CE2LTA, said the Los Molinos club hopes to keep working with the school going forward, continuing to promote the study of science and satellites among its students.

A genuinely inspiring reminder of what amateur radio can make possible for young people — sometimes literally connecting a classroom to space.