Nov 18 2011
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-236 ASTRONAUT, FOOD SCIENTIST TO DISCUSS THANKSGIVING IN SPACE
Houston - Please pass the irradiated smoked turkey, thermostable yams and freeze-dried green beans. The International Space Station is stocked and ready for an out-of-this-world Thanksgiving feast. The three station crew members, one American and two Russians, will enjoy a holiday dinner floating 220 miles above Earth. In addition to the traditional holiday favorites, albeit with a space-food flair, their menu will include NASA's own cornbread dressing, as well as home style potatoes and cranberries. And, along with the best view from any Thanksgiving table, cherry-blueberry cobbler is available for dessert. Vickie Kloeris, NASA food scientist and manager of the space station food system, and astronaut Clay Anderson are available for live satellite interviews on Wednesday, Nov. 23, from 6-7:30 a.m. CST to discuss the station's Thanksgiving menu. A veteran of two space flights, Anderson spent 152 days living aboard the station in 2007 and returned to the outpost in 2010 as a member of space shuttle mission STS-131. Related b-roll will precede the interviews at 5:30 a.m. To arrange an interview, news media representatives must contact the Johnson Space Center newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 3 p.m. on Nov. 22. Participating media must tune into NASA Television's Live Interview Media Outlet channel. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by uplink provider Americom. It is on satellite SES 2, transponder 9C, located at 87 degrees west, downlink frequency 3865.5 MHz based on a standard C-band, horizontal downlink polarity. FEC is 3/4, data rate is 6.0 Mbps, symbol rate is 4.3404 Msps, transmission DVB-S, 4:2:0. NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin arrived at the station Tuesday and will spend this holiday season aboard the orbiting laboratory. They are scheduled to live and work aboard the station until March, conducting dozens of experiments and preparing for the arrival of new commercial resupply spacecraft. Burbank recently described the station crew's plans for celebrating Thanksgiving.
MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-237 NASA ANNOUNCES PRELAUNCH EVENTS FOR MARS SCIENCE LAB MISSION
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- News conferences, events and operating hours for the Press Site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., are set for the agency's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover launch. MSL is scheduled to liftoff at 10:25 a.m. EST on Nov. 25 from Space Launch Complex 41 at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA Television's countdown launch commentary begins at 8 a.m. on Nov. 25. That also is when a NASA blog will begin providing countdown updates. Originating from the Air Force station's Hangar AE, the blog is the definitive Internet source for information leading up to liftoff. The Curiosity rover has 10 science instruments to search for evidence Mars had environments favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life. The unique rover will use a laser to look inside rocks and release their gasses so its spectrometer can analyze and send the data back to Earth. Free wireless Internet access currently is not available at Kennedy's Press Site. Media representatives must bring their own equipment for wireless connectivity.
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