Where We Came From

Operation: First Contact was the brainchild of four Wireless and Telecommunications Technology students in Toronto, Ontario. What started off as a mere graduation project turned into a phenomenon across Canada.

In 2008, Gino Cunti, Paul Je, Kevin Luong, and Patrick Neelin were discussing possibilities for their sixth semester graduate project. The goal was to create a project which would demonstrate everything that they had learned over the three-year program. 

After throwing around several ideas, they joked that it would be pretty easy to contact space. Perhaps they could talk to aliens or something! That idea stuck, and the four students decided that they would somehow talk to someone onboard the International Space Station. Before long the four students brought the idea to their professor, Mark Rector.

Mark, understandably, sure that the students were in over their heads. After all, at this point the students were in their third semester. The bulk of their program was still ahead of them, and they had not yet learned most of the things they would need to undertake such a project.

On top of that, there were several logistical challenges which would prevent them from contacting the space station. Where would the funding for this project come from? How would they know where the station was? How would they track it as it crossed the sky? And even if they could contact the space station, how could they be certain that someone would answer? Mark gave the students two weeks to figure out the answers to these questions.

A challenge accepted...

Within a week, and after a lot of research, the four students came up with solutions to the technical and logistical issues. A computer could get the exact coordinates of the space station. There's a device that they could build to translate those coordinates into a voltage, which could be fed into an antenna rotator.

The remaining issue was to make sure that someone would be on the space station waiting for our transmission. The group contacted an organization called ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station). This organization routinely sets up these sorts of contacts by acting as a middle-man between civilians and NASA. In most cases, ARISS will contact NASA to schedule a date and time for contact, and an experienced radio organization will set up equipment at elementary schools. In this case, though, there were no radio clubs. It was just four inexperienced students chasing a dream. The students were hoping for a contact date close to April 2009, a few weeks before graduation.

For months, the students toiled away. Not only did they have their current coursework to deal with, but they also needed to learn a lot of their future coursework in order to correctly design and test the project equipment.

Game time...

On January 1, 2009, professor Mark Rector received the official call from ARISS, saying that the team was given a contact date of February 2, 2009.

With a much closer deadline looming, the students had to work extra hard in order to have everything ready for the big day. They were working hard already, but they needed to step up their efforts now! Any free time they had was spent at the college, working in the wind and the snow.

February 2 was a cold, windy day. In a room full of family, friends, professors, and media, the students nervously prepared for contact. There had been no dress rehearsal. There was no guarantee that this would work.

At 12:29 pm (EST), it was game time. Gino picked up the microphone and said, "NA1SS this is VA3JUV Humber College checking in for scheduled contact, do you copy?" There was no response, so he tried again.

"I have you a bit weak," responded the crackled voice of astronaut Sandra Magnus aboard the International Space Station. "Can you try again?" The room erupted in applause!

For the next ten minutes, the students took turns asking Ms. Magnus questions of both a technological and philosophical nature. As the ISS hurdled over the horizon and out of range, the signal became weaker, and the students signed off. The project had been a success!

After the contact...

In the aftermath of Operation: First Contact, both the students and professor Mark Rector were invited to make many media appearances. Gino and Mark appeared on CTV's Canada AM. Patrick and Paul were given the opportunity to speak with CTV's Sandie Rinaldo. Patrick himself was even interviewed on The Discovery Channel.

In April 2009, the OFC team brought a bus full of Electronic and Telecommunication students on a trip to Ottawa, Ontario. It was on this day that they had the opportunity and privilege to meet Marc Garneau, Canada's first astronaut, at Parliament Hill.

In November 2009, Gino, Paul, Kevin, and Patrick returned to Ottawa, where they were each given a one-thousand dollar scholarship from Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame.

Since then, the team has been concentrating on their professional lives. While they've all gone their separate ways, they still make sure to keep in close contact.