An International Space Station Expedition 16 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Lycée de la Borde Basse, Castres, France on 5 March. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 09:49 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations FX0STD and F8IDR. The contact should be audible over Most of Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in French.

As the only public high school in Castres (population 47,000 and the second largest city in the Tarn region) Borde-Basse accommodates around 2,000 students, offering general, technological and professional studies in several areas of specialization. The school is situated in a marvelous location on the outskirts of the city and surrounded by a man-made lake, on a huge campus equipped with a large range of sporting facilities. The class concerned with this project is a 10th Grade class (15-16 years of age), made up of 35 students, and accompanied by Mrs. Amat Chappuis, their Physics and Chemistry teacher.

1. Upcoming School Contacts An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Lycée de la Borde Basse in Castres, France on Wednesday, March 5 at 09:49 UTC. In preparation for the contact, teachers will focus on science applications and the ISS. Activities planned include a visit to the Cité de l'espace in Toulouse and a meeting with a scientist residing in Castres, founder of the "Terre et Espace" association (Earth & Space), who has volunteered to give a presentation to the students on work in space and astronaut training techniques. Students will be divided into different study groups according to personal interest in various related subjects such as the implementation and launch of ISS space modules, re-supply missions, life in micro-gravitational conditions and experiments carried out onboard the ISS. Students will prepare questions in French and English on various subjects. ESA astronaut Léopold Eyharts, FX0STD/KE5FNO, plans to participate in this contact. The audio from this event will be fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (101 377) and JK1ZRW (277 208) servers.