A GROUP of schoolgirls are making their own little bit of history today - with the help of the orbiting International Space Station.

The North Yorkshire youngsters will become the first in the UK to have a scheduled amateur radio contact with the astronauts on board this morning.

Pupils from Harrogate Ladies' College will be putting various questions to the astronauts and will also be making a webcast of the event.

The ISS, which works on Greenwich Mean Time, is 230 miles above the Earth and orbits the globe once every 103 minutes.

There will be a 12-minute window when it is contactable as it rises from one horizon and travels over the UK before disappearing below the opposite horizon. During that time, the pupils will be able to put questions to the crew - Russian commander Yuri Onufrienko and American flight engineers Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz.

The school has a keen amateur radio club and has made previous link-ups with the Space Shuttle and the Mir Space Station.

The school's director of applied physics and ICT systems, David Horton, said: "This is a remarkable opportunity for the girls to use their amateur radio skills to speak to the ISS crew while they are actually in space."

The contact has been organised by the Amateur Radio in the International Space Station branch of Nasa and Mr Horton.

All the pupils taking part in the link-up have amateur radio licences, gained during their time at the college.