Prague, April 9 (CTK) – Public Czech Television (CT) established connection with the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time on Monday, making an interview with U.S. astronaut Andrew Feustel that will be broadcast on Saturday, the authors of CT’s Hyde Park Civilizace programme have tweeted.
A report on recording the interview will be broadcast within the Udalosti prime time newscasts tonight.
According to the authors, NASA gave the ISS crew 20 minutes to make an interview with CT. On this occasion, Feustel put on a T-shirt with a logo marking 100 years of Czech-U.S. relations and the independent state of Czechs.
Besides, Feustel had a figure of The Mole, a popular character of a Czech animated film series, on him.
The interview recording was preceded by months of negotiations. Feustel agreed with the idea of a televised transmission from the beginning and supported it in CT’s negotiations with NASA, Vlasta Cihlarova, chief editor of CT’s programme, said.
She said the recording of the interview was extremely technically demanding, since the ISS is moving in the altitude of 400 kilometres and at over 27,000 kph.
The connection signal proceeded via several satellites to New Mexico, the USA, from where a satellite of the European Broadcasting Union sent it to CT.
Feustel started his third outer space mission in March. He took Czech-related items on all three missions, because his wife Indira has Czech ancestors.
At present, Feustel has The Mole, figure designed by the late illustrator Zdenek Miler, aboard the ISS, and also copies of two pictures from the Vedem magazine, which was issued by boys in a wartime Jewish ghetto in Terezin (Theresienstadt), north Bohemia.
Feustel also took The Mole with him in 2011, when he spent 16 days on the ISS within the Endeavour STS-134’s flight in 2011.
In his leisure time aboard the ISS, Feustel now cooperates on a programme organised by the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (AV CR) and the Czech Space Agency.
