NASA Space Station Crewmen Available For In-Flight Interviews

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Nov 09, 2011, 01:34 ET

HOUSTON, Nov. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Two NASA astronauts soon will be aboard the International Space Station and available for regularly scheduled interview opportunities with accredited news media.

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Daniel Burbank, a veteran of two space shuttle missions to assemble the station, will launch with Russian crewmates on a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan on Sunday, Nov. 13. Arriving at the complex on Nov. 16 for a four-month mission, Burbank will command the Expedition 30 crew through mid-March.

Donald Pettit will join Burbank in late December when he launches from Kazakhstan with Russian and European crewmates in another Soyuz spacecraft. Pettit will remain on the station for five months, returning to Earth in mid-May after serving as part of the Expedition 30 and 31 crews. He is a veteran of a long-duration mission on the station as part of the Expedition 6 crew in 2002 and 2003, as well as a subsequent space shuttle mission to assemble the station.

Because of the nature of human spaceflight activities, news media must remain flexible to accommodate scheduling changes in interview times and dates. These opportunities are scheduled in the crew members' timeline each week, generally in the morning between 8 a.m. and noon CST.

In-flight interviews are broadcast on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website. News media must have two dedicated telephone lines available and be able to receive NASA TV via NASA's LIMO Channel to communicate with and view the astronauts.

The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink provided by Americom. It is on satellite SES-2, transponder 9C, located at 87 degrees west, downlink frequency 3865.5 MHz based on a standard C-band, horizontal downlink polarity. FEC is 3/4, data rate is 6.0 Mbps, symbol rate is 4.3404 Msps, transmission DVB-S, 4:2:0.

News media must email a detailed interview proposal to Rob Navias at [email protected] or Kylie Clem at [email protected].

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For biographical information and other astronaut information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/astronauts

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

SOURCE NASA