Two astronauts living and working aboard the International Space Station will talk live with students in Arizona and California on Friday, March 2. The separate Earth-to-space calls will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Students from H.L. Suverkrup Elementary School in Yuma, Arizona, will talk to Expedition 55 astronauts Scott Tingle of NASA and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency at 10:30 a.m. EST. Media interested in attending the event should contact Trina Seigfried at 928-246-3565 or tseigfried@craneschools.org. The event will take place at 1590 S Ave.

At 12:15 p.m., Tingle and Kanai will get a call from students at Monta Loma Elementary School in Mountain View, California. To attend this event, media should contact Shelly Hausman at shausman@mvwsd.org or 650-796-8304. The event will take place at 60 Thompson Ave.

The students will have a unique opportunity to pose questions directly to astronauts about life aboard the space station, NASA’s deep space exploration plans, and doing science in space. They’re preparing for the event by studying the space station, astronaut biographies, and the current research and activities happening aboard the station. In addition, the Suverkrup students have added their names to NASA’s InSight Mars lander Names to Mars program and are preparing for a virtual field trip to the Red Planet.

These in-flight education downlinks are an integral component of NASA’s Year of Education on Station, which provides extensive space station-related resources and opportunities to students and educators. Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning, performance and interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Astronauts living on the orbiting laboratory are able to participate in these educational calls, and communicate 24 hours a day with the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, through the agency Space Network’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites.

Follow the astronauts on social media:

https://www.twitter.com/NASA_astronauts

See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the International Space Station at:

https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation