Jan 23 2017
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY M17-010 NASA Television to Air Service Celebrating Life, Legacy of Eugene Cernan
NASA Television will provide the pool coverage of the funeral service for NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Capt. Eugene A. Cernan at 3:30 p.m. EST (2:30 p.m. CST) on Tuesday, Jan. 24, live from St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston.
Media cameras will not be permitted in the church, however, there will be a designated media area outside. Please note, there will be no interviews with special guests.
Cernan left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon. He also holds the distinction of being the second American to walk in space and the last human to leave his footprints on the lunar surface.
MEDIA ADVISORY M17-008 NASA TV to Broadcast Cargo Ship Departure from Space Station
Six weeks after delivering more than 4.5 tons of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station, an unpiloted Japanese cargo spacecraft is scheduled to depart the station Friday, Jan. 27. Live coverage of the departure will begin at 10 a.m. EST on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
Ground controllers will use the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to unberth the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) H-II Transport Vehicle-6 (HTV-6) several hours before its release. Space station Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), with back-up support from Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA, will then command the station’s robotic arm to release HTV-6, loaded with station trash, at 10:30 a.m.
The cargo ship will move to a safe distance below and in front of the station for about a week’s worth of data gathering with a JAXA experiment designed to measure electromagnetic forces using a tether in low-Earth orbit. JAXA is scheduled to deorbit the craft around Feb. 5 and have it burn up harmlessly over the Pacific Ocean.
The HTV-6 launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan on Dec. 9 and arrived at the station on Dec. 13. It delivered water, spare parts and experiment hardware to the six-person station crew, including six new lithium-ion batteries and adapter plates that replaced the nickel-hydrogen batteries previously used on the station to store electrical energy generated by the station’s solar arrays. These were installed through a blend of complex robotics and two spacewalks this month.
