NASA Astronaut Terry Virts Available for Interviews before His Space Station Mission

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Oct 30, 2014, 02:02 ET

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA astronaut Terry Virts, who is making final preparations for his launch next month to the International Space Station, will be available for live satellite interviews from 6-7 a.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 5.

Virts will participate live from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, where he is completing his training. The interviews will be preceded at 5:30 a.m. by a video highlighting his mission training and previous spaceflight.

To schedule an interview time, reporters should contact Karen Svetaka at (281) 483-8684 no later than 3 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Virts was born in Baltimore and calls Columbia, Maryland, his hometown. He earned degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force has accumulated more than 4,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft. Virts was selected as an astronaut in 2000 and piloted space shuttle Endeavour during the STS-130 mission in February 2010. The 13-day mission delivered the Tranquility module and cupola to the space station.

Virts' crewmates are astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The three will launch to the station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft Nov. 23 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Once they arrive, they will join Expedition 42 Commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore of NASA and cosmonauts Elena Serova and Alexander Samoukutyaev of Roscosmos, who launched to the station in September.

The crew will continue supporting several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard the orbiting laboratory. Virts, who is expected to conduct at least two spacewalks during his five-and-a-half-month mission, is scheduled to return to Earth in May 2015.

Media participating in the live shots must tune to NTV-3. Satellite tuning information is available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1pOWUhR

For more information on NASA TV coverage, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Virts' biography is available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/w1eH1s

Follow Virts via Twitter at:

https://twitter.com/AstroTerry

Follow Virts and all the space station crew members on Instagram:

http://instagram.com/iss

For information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station