AMSAT Secretary Alan Biddle, WA4SCA, said the ARISSat-1 Team is still looking for entries in the Chicken Little Contest. This is your opportunity to calculate or guess when ARISSat-1 falls out of orbit. This is defined as the time it crosses an altitude of 78 kilometers, which is considered to be the point of no return. “This involves your prognostications, calculations, guesses, darts-in-the-calendar submissions for when ARRISSat-1 makes its final orbit,” Biddle said. “We have a fair number of submissions from all over the world from adults, but very few from students. If you know of one who might be interested, encourage them to enter.”

There are three categories in this contest: Student category for Kindergarten through grade 8, Student category for high school (grades 9-12) and Adults. “In addition to individual students, we encourage classes or organizations, such as science clubs, to make group submissions,” he explained. “Please give the UTC date in the format of day, month, year, hours, minutes and seconds. Submissions are limited to one per person or group. Members of a group making a submission may not submit a second individual entry. Adults and individual students should include their name and amateur call sign, if they have one. Individual students should also give their grade in school. Student groups should include the name of their group or class, school and which category they represent. Finally, we would like to know your city, state, province or region, and your country.”

Submissions will close on October 15, 2011 at 23:59:00 (UTC). Biddle said that the closest predictions in each category will be recognized for their achievement. Send your submissions via e-mail.