The orbiting International Space Station (ISS) is crewed by astronauts and cosmonauts from a variety of countries. From its inception, the ISS has had amateur radio facilities on board, including an FM repeater, a packet radio station and slow scan television (SSTV) transmit facilities. No doubt, this evolved from the pioneering Russian MIR (Russian for Peace) space station, from where the cosmonauts regularly chatted with amateur radio operators down here on Earth. When Briton's first person in space, cosmonaut Helen Sharman, was aboard MIR, she had several chats with school stations and individual radio amateurs using the callsign GB1MIR. Right now, Russian shuttles carry supplies and personnel to and from the International Space Station and a number of the cosmonauts and astronauts use the on board amateur radio station to have chats with people down on the ground.
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