An 8 - year - old girl from the UK has confab to the cosmonaut onboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) using her papa ’s ham radio . Isabella Payne managed to catch a quick call to the ISS with the aid of her father Matt , an recreational radio receiver enthusiast from Kent , England .
Late in the evening on August 2 , the couple took a punting at communicating with the amateur radio place NA1SS onboard the ISS . With a cerebrovascular accident of destiny and some technical know - how , they managed to get through to Kjell Lindgren , commander of NASA SpaceX Crew-4 who launched to the ISS in April .
“ Welcome to the International Space Station , ” Lindgrenwelcomedthe caller after they exchanged some technical formalities need for radio communicating .
“ My name ’s Isabella , I ’m 8 years old , " Isabella said .
" Isabella , it ’s so great to chew the fat with you , thank you for getting on the radio and saying hello , " Lindgren respond .
“ give thanks you . Fly safe , ” Isabella added .
The conversation live a footling more than 30 seconds , but Matt and Lindgren finagle to catch up later on that Clarence Shepard Day Jr. on Twitter ( below ) .
The radio on the ISS is part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station ( ARISS ) undertaking , an enterprisingness designed to inspire people to get involved in science , engineering , applied science , and mathematics through unskilled radio communication theory .
The ISS crew uses the radio to hold Q&A sessions with schoolkids oodles of time a twelvemonth and , in theory , anyone with the right part of outfit can communicate with the astronaut . However , Isabella was pretty rosy to catch this chance .
“ It ’s pretty rare to verbalise to an Astronaut outside of a scheduled educational tangency . There are several factors that need to align for it to happen , ” Matt state IFLScience .
“ The ISS must be passing within LOS ( Line Of Sight ) … at a time that coincide with an astronauts ‘ down time , ’ as in they must not be working doing an prescribed schedule task . There must be an astronaut who is actively using the Amateur Radio equipment to make unscheduled contact , ” he explained .
Isabella does n’t have any desire to become an spaceman , although she has picked up on her don ’s cacoethes for radio set and would wish to work as a communication specialiser at a space delegacy when she ’s older . After all , it looks like she does have a hang for it already .
“ Isabella was amazed that Kjell answer her call . If you could imagine , for Kjell it must be like standing on a vast microscope stage with 100 ’s of people shouting out their name and he has to pick one out of all that noise ! In Isabella ’s intelligence ' It was astonishing and very special ' " , Matt added .
