Sep 10 2018
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-133 NASA Astronaut Nick Hague Available for Interviews Before First Spaceflight
NASA astronaut Nick Hague will be available at 7 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 19, for live satellite interviews from Russia before he launches to the International Space Station on his first spaceflight in October.
Hague currently is at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, with his crewmate Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. They will launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on the Russian Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft at 4:39 a.m. (2:39 p.m. Baikonur time) Oct. 11. They are scheduled to return to Earth in April.
To interview Hague, media must contact Karen Svetaka at 281-483-8684 or karen.a.svetaka@nasa.gov no later than 3 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18. Media participating in the interviews must tune in to the NASA TV Media Channel (NTV-3). Satellite tuning information is available at: http://go.nasa.gov/1pOWUhR
Leading up to the interviews on Sept. 19, NASA TV will air highlights from Hague’s training beginning at 6:30 a.m.
Hague is a native of Hoxie, Kansas, and a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He is part of the 2013 NASA astronaut class and will be the first of his class to go to space. Prior to his selection, he was part of the Air Force Fellows program in Washington, where he worked as an adviser to the U.S. Senate on matters of national defense and foreign policy.
Hague earned a bachelor’s degree in astronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a master’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
After a six-hour journey to orbit, Hague and Ovchinin will arrive at the station and join fellow NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Expedition 57 Commander Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency), and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos, bringing the station’s crew complement to five.
During a planned six-month mission, station crew members will take part in about 250 research investigations and technology demonstrations not possible on Earth to advance scientific knowledge of Earth, space, physical and biological sciences. Science conducted on the space station continues to yield benefits for humanity and will enable future long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space, including the Moon and Mars.
They’re also expected to be onboard the space station during the first uncrewed test flights of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST-100 Starliner as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which will return astronaut launches to U.S. soil.
MEDIA ADVISORY m18-136 NASA to Broadcast Final Parachute Test for Orion Spacecraft
NASA will air the final test Wednesday, Sept. 12, of the parachute system for its Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to the Moon and beyond. Live coverage of the test from the U.S. Army’s Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona will begin at 10:15 a.m. EDT on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the Orion Facebook page.
Viewers can ask questions of NASA experts, including Orion Program Manager, Mark Kirasich, astronaut Randy Bresnik and Orion parachute engineers, on social media during the event using #AskNASA.
An Orion test capsule will be dropped from a C-17 aircraft at an altitude of more than six miles to verify the spacecraft’s complex system of 11 parachutes, cannon-like mortars, and pyrotechnic devices work in sequence to slow the capsule’s descent for a safe landing on Earth.
To date, such tests have evaluated Orion’s parachute performance during normal landing sequences, several failure scenarios, and a variety of potential aerodynamic conditions, to ensure the safe return of astronauts from deep space missions.
