Back in October Mairead Ronan spoke with teacher Laura Donelan about her Student's at Athlone Community College received the opportunity to speak with the International Space Station, a year in the making with planning and organizing with amateur radio their dreams finally came through.

Yesterday at 14.50pm Athlone Community college sent their callsign signal to the ISS and approximately 30 seconds later the station responded with the voice of NASA astronaut Shannon Walker, who responded 'Ready for Questioning'.

The students at the college managed 8 minutes of contact time with the NASA astronaut and asked 20 questions. Including what happens when your nose gets itchy in your space suit to which Specialist Walker responded 'There's not a damn thing you can do about it' in a humorous exchange.

Check out Mairead's full chat with Laura now on podcast, you can always listen back to our original chat with Miss. Donelan which took place in October here.