The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) recently partnered with a New Jersey school and radio station to connect students with an astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) through NASA’s Amateur Radio on the Space Station (ARISS) program.

The ARISS program, managed by an international consortium of amateur radio groups, enables students worldwide to speak directly with astronauts about space technologies and communications. During the contact window when the ISS was passed overhead, students had an eight-minute conversation with an astronaut.

ASME strategy manager Robert “Sky” Marchini, an amateur ham radio operator, helped organize the event—from coordinating with school leadership to helping the club’s on-site technical team.

“There are plenty of details that need to be done before and during a conversation with a space station,” Marchini reflected. “We had to pull five separate runs of 200 feet of cabling through a drop ceiling and to a roof hatch,” they explained, describing installing a huge antenna on top of the roof and making the necessary connections.

Access more information about the program and recent efforts on ASME’s website.