NASA's Recently Returned Station Commander Williams Available For Interviews

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Nov 20, 2012, 04:16 ET

HOUSTON, Nov. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who returned to Earth Sunday after four months on the International Space Station, will be available for live satellite interviews from 6-7 a.m. CST Friday, Nov. 30.

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To participate in the interviews, reporters must contact Karen Svetaka at 281-483-8684 no later than 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29. Video highlights of Williams' mission will air at 5:30 a.m. before the start of the interviews.

Williams, who was born in Euclid, Ohio, but considers Needham, Mass., her hometown, launched to the orbiting laboratory on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft July 15. She spent 125 days aboard the station as an Expedition 32 flight engineer and Expedition 33 commander.

Williams' stint aboard the space station included three spacewalks, during which she and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide repaired several critical elements of the complex.

Williams now has spent 322 days in space on two missions. She ranks sixth on the all-time U.S. list for cumulative time in space and second on the all-time list for women. She previously spent 195 days in space as a flight engineer during Expedition 14/15. With seven spacewalks totaling 50 hours, 40 minutes, Williams holds the record for total cumulative spacewalk time by a female astronaut.

Williams received a bachelor's degree in physical science from the United States Naval Academy and a master's degree in engineering management from Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Fla. She was selected as an astronaut in 1998.

NASA TV's Media Channel #103 will carry the b-roll and be used to conduct the interviews. It is an MPEG-4 digital C-band signal, carried by QPSK/DVB-S modulation on satellite AMC-18C, transponder 3C, at 105 degrees west longitude, with a downlink frequency of 3760 MHz, vertical polarization, data rate of 38.80 MHz, symbol rate of 28.0681 Mbps, and 3/4 FEC. A digital video broadcast (DVB) compliant integrated receiver decoder (IRD) is needed for reception. The compression format is MPEG-4, Video PID = 0x1031 hex / 4145 decimal, AC-3 Audio PID = 0x1035 hex /4149 decimal, MPEG I Layer II Audio PID = 0x1034 hex /4148 decimal.

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

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Williams' biography is available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/ObgQJC

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Join the conversation on Twitter by following the hashtag #ISS. To learn more about all the ways to Connect and Collaborate with NASA, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect

SOURCE NASA