Next International Space Station Crew Holds News Conference

HOUSTON — The next crew to live and work on the International Space Station will participate in a news conference at 1 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, Sept. 15, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The news conference will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The crew also will answer questions from reporters at participating NASA centers and from those in Europe.

NASA astronaut Cady Coleman and her crewmates Dmitry Kondratiev, of the Russian Space Agency, and Paolo Nespoli, of the European Space Agency, will participate in individual round-robin interviews, in person or by phone, following the news conference. The crew also will participate in a photo opportunity for reporters at Johnson.

U.S. and foreign media representatives planning to attend the briefing must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 7. To participate in the round-robin interviews, reporters should contact the Johnson newsroom by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

Coleman, Kondratiev and Nespoli will constitute three of the six crewmembers for both Expedition 26 and 27. They will launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in mid-December.

They will join NASA’s Scott Kelly, who will command the station, and Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka. Kelly, Kaleri and Skripochka will launch in a separate Soyuz on Oct. 7 and arrive at the orbiting laboratory Oct. 9.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the crew members and their mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition26