NASA will host a pair of news conferences Tuesday, July 25, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to highlight upcoming crew rotations missions to the International Space Station.
The briefings will cover NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the space station, currently targeted to launch Tuesday, Aug. 15, for a science mission aboard the microgravity laboratory.
The mission overview news conference will begin at 12:30 p.m. EDT, and a crew news conference will start at 2 p.m. Both briefings will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. The crew also will be available for individual interviews at 3:30 p.m.
The Crew-7 mission will carry NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos.
In addition to the Crew-7 participants, NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara also will participate in the crew briefing and interviews. Following a month later, O’Hara will launch to the space station on Sept. 15 for a mission with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.
For the Crew-7 mission, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft will launch from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the company’s seventh crew rotation mission for NASA. O’Hara will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
This event will be the final media opportunity to speak to the Crew-7 astronauts before they travel to NASA Kennedy for launch. Media wishing to participate in person or seeking a remote interview with the crew must request credentials no later than 5 p.m. Friday, July 21, from the NASA Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111.
International media without U.S. citizenship wishing to participate in person must apply by 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 12. U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media must apply by 5 p.m. Friday, July 21. Media must request credentials from the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111.
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Media interested in participating by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom by 9:45 a.m. the day of the event.
Briefing participants include (all times eastern):
12:30 p.m.: Mission Overviews News Conference
- Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Johnson
- Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson
- Frank De Winne, manager, International Space Station Program, ESA
- Hiroshi Sasaki, vice president and director general, Human Space Flight Technology Directorate, JAXA
2 p.m.: Crews News Conference
- Loral O’Hara, NASA astronaut, Soyuz MS-24 flight engineer
- Jasmin Moghbeli, NASA astronaut, Crew-7 spacecraft commander
- Andreas Mogensen , ESA astronaut, Crew-7 pilot
- Satoshi Furukawa, JAXA astronaut, Crew-7 mission specialist
- Konstantin Borisov, Roscosmos cosmonaut, Crew-7 mission specialist
3:30 p.m.: Crews Individual Interview Opportunities
- Crew-7 members and O’Hara available for a limited number of interviews
O’Hara is making her first spaceflight after selection as part of the 2017 NASA astronaut class. The Texas native earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and a Master of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Prior to joining NASA, her work focused on the engineering and operations of deep-ocean research submersibles and robots. At the time of her selection in June 2017, O’Hara was a research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she spent eight years working on the engineering and operations of underwater vehicles such as the human-occupied research submersible Alvin and the remotely operated vehicle Jason. She will join Expedition 69/70 as a flight engineer aboard the space station.
This is Moghbeli’s first trip into space since her selection as a NASA astronaut in 2017. The New York native earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering with information technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Master of Science in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Moghbeli, a helicopter and Marine Corps test pilot, has more than 150 combat missions and 2,000 hours of flight time in over 25 different aircraft. She also is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. As mission commander, she will be responsible for all phases of flight, from launch to re-entry. She will serve as an Expedition 69/70 flight engineer aboard the station.
SOURCE: PRNewswire