Challenges of Living and Working Aboard the Space Station: NASA Astronaut Nicole Stott Available for TV Interviews

HOUSTON — After three months living aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Nicole Stott will be available for satellite interviews from Houston between 6 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. CST on Thursday, Dec. 17.

To arrange an interview via NASA Television, journalists should contact Derek Sollosi at 281-792-7515 or by e-mail to derek.sollosi-1@nasa.gov by 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 16. B-roll of Stott’s flight will air from 5:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. Dec. 17.

Stott, of Clearwater, Fla., served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21 aboard the station and joined five other crew members living on the orbiting complex. She was the chief robotics operator, responsible for capturing, berthing and later releasing the first Japanese cargo ship flown to the station. In addition to working on multiple scientific studies, she also conducted a 6-and-a-half-hour spacewalk in September to continue station assembly.

Stott was the final station resident to fly to and from the complex on the space shuttle. She launched on space shuttle Discovery in August and returned to Earth aboard shuttle Atlantis in November. Stott spent a total of 91 days in space, 87 of them aboard the station. Stott has been assigned to fly on the STS-133 mission in September 2010, currently the final scheduled flight of the Space Shuttle Program.

The NASA Live Interview Media Outlet channel will be used for the interviews. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by uplink provider Americom. It is on satellite AMC 6, transponder 5C, located at 72 degrees west, downlink frequency 3785.5 Mhz based on a standard C-band 5150 Mhz L.O., vertical polarity, FEC is 3/4, data rate is 6.00 Mhz, symbol rate is 4.3404 Mbaud, transmission DVB, minimum Eb/N0 is 6.0 dB.

The interviews also will be broadcast live on NASA TV. For streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For complete biographical information about Stott, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/stott-np.html

For more information about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

For more information about the space shuttle, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle