Media Invited to News Conference with NASA Astronaut Anne McClain and Space Station Crewmates

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Aug 30, 2018, 12:58 ET

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA astronaut Anne McClain, along with her crewmates, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, will discuss their upcoming mission to the International Space Station in a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT Thursday, Sept. 6, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA Television and on the agency's website. The crew will be available afterward for in-person and remote media interviews.

The crew is scheduled to launch Dec. 20 aboard the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

McClain, Saint-Jacques and Kononenko will join the station's Expedition 58 crew and will return to Earth in June 2019 as members of Expedition 59. This will be the first spaceflight for both McClain and Saint-Jacques. Kononenko will be making his fourth trip to the space station and will serve as the commander of Expedition 59.

U.S. reporters wishing to participate in the news conference in person or to reserve an in-person or telephone interview opportunity must contact Johnson's newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 5.

Reporters who wish to participate in the news conference by telephone must call Johnson's newsroom no later than 1:45 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 6. Those following the briefing on social media may ask questions using the hashtag #askNASA.

During a planned six-month mission, the crew will facilitate about 250 research investigations and technology demonstrations not possible on Earth to advance scientific knowledge of Earth, space, physical and biological sciences. Among them, McClain is expected to take part in one of the first Tissues on Chips investigation, which will launch to the orbiting laboratory this fall aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. The experiment will use miniature models of living organ tissues on transparent microchips to replicate the complex biological functions of specific organs, thus enabling studies of the effects of reduced gravity on organs at the cell and tissue levels.

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.

The crew also is scheduled to be in space during one of the uncrewed test flights of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which will resume human spaceflight launches from U.S. soil.

McClain, a native of Spokane, Washington, is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. As a senior army aviator, she has logged more than 2,000 hours in 20 different rotary and fixed-wing aircraft.

She earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. She earned a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Bath, in England, and a master's degree in international relations from the University of Bristol, also in England.

Follow McClain on Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal

SOURCE NASA