ARISS Was a Success!

Final details were coming together.

The date and time was set.

The anticipation & excitement was mounting.

Then it was here!

This morning June 2, 2021 at 8:17 am we were able to see the fruits of our labor as the ARISS event went live. My stomach knotted up when I prayed that the connection between ground control located in Australia with the astronaut on the International Space Station would work. This was the final "piece of the puzzle" in this 2 year endeavor for this event to be successful.

It was a just static at the first try from ground control, so they tried again to make a connection.

My eyes welled up with tears when I heard the voice of Akihiko Hoshide (the astronaut on the International Space Station), stating he could hear ground control "loud and clear!"

The students did a marvelous job when asking their questions, thank you for representing Roots well.

I wanted to give a HUGE thank you to Gokhan for all of his hard work and time to get this all set up for us, this really was a once in a lifetime experience and one we won't forget any time soon!

Here are handful of responses from some of the Roots families after the event ended this morning:

"Thank you so much for helping set up the call with the astronaut. It was so fun!"

"Thank you so much to Gokhan, Tammy, Brian and everyone else that made that possible!! What an incredible experience!! Thank you!!"

"Thank you so much to everyone involved in this amazing event. It was awesome!"

"What an incredible experience! We loved it. Thanks for all the effort put into pulling this off. So neat."

"Our family really enjoyed it!! Thanks to everyone involved in making it happen :)"

If you missed the live event, you can still watch it through YouTube by clicking this link: https://youtu.be/S0_-QFkXdi4