Aug 24 2017

From The Space Library

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Revision as of 15:52, 25 August 2017

MEDIA ADVISORY M17-096 Media Invited to Talk to Record-Breaking NASA Astronaut Before Landing

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s final news conference from the International Space Station will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 30.

The 30-minute news conference will take place just days before Whitson returns to Earth after spending more than nine months aboard the orbiting laboratory, and breaking a number of records in space. Media may ask questions from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston or Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as by phone.

To attend the briefing at Johnson, U.S. media must request credentials from the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 29. To ask questions by phone, media must call the Johnson newsroom no later than 12:40 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 30.

All media accreditation requests for Kennedy must be submitted by 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 28, online at: https://media.ksc.nasa.gov/

To access Kennedy, all media representatives must present two forms of unexpired, government identification. One form must include a photo, such as a passport or driver’s license. Questions about accreditation should be directed to Jennifer Horner at jennifer.p.horner@nasa.gov or 321-867-6598.

Whitson launched to the space station Nov. 17, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is set to return Saturday, Sept. 2. She will land in Kazakhstan at 9:22 p.m. (7:22 a.m. Kazakhstan time on Sept. 3) along with NASA’s Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. Fischer and Yurchikhin have been Whitson’s crew mates since they arrived at the space station in April.

Whitson and Fischer will return to Houston’s Ellington Field on Sunday, Sept. 3.

After landing, Whitson will hold the U.S. record for cumulative time in space, with 665 days in space during three long-duration missions. She was originally scheduled to return to Earth in June, but her mission was extended in March, increasing the amount of valuable astronaut time available for hundreds of experiments she and her crewmates participated in. She is the woman who has spent the longest time in orbit during a single spaceflight (288 days). Whitson also holds the records for most spacewalks and time spent spacewalking by a female astronaut. During her second mission, she became the first woman to command the space station, and during this mission, she became the first woman to command the station twice – she was station commander from April 9 through June 1.