Author Topic: STS-115: NASA Announces Briefings About Next Shuttle Mission  (Read 1073 times)

Offline Chris Bergin

NASA Announces Briefings About Next Shuttle Mission

NASA will preview the next space shuttle mission in a series of media briefings Friday, Aug. 11. Space Shuttle Atlantis' mission, designated STS- 115, is targeted for late August and will resume construction of the International Space Station. The mission will begin a series of flights as complex and challenging as any in history to complete assembly of the station.


The briefings will originate from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and carried live on NASA TV beginning at 9 a.m. EDT. Questions will be taken from media at participating NASA locations and from Canadian Space Agency headquarters in St. Hubert, Quebec, Canada.


Round-robin interview opportunities with Atlantis crew members will be available to media in person or by phone from 3 to 6 p.m. EDT at Johnson. Those interviews will not be broadcast on NASA TV.


Media planning to attend the briefings or participate in the round-robins must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 to arrange credentials and interview time. U.S. media should contact Johnson by Aug. 9 to make arrangements. Foreign national media, regardless of citizenship, that plan to attend the briefings must contact Johnson by Friday, July 28, to arrange credentials.


Atlantis' crew is Commander Brent Jett, Pilot Chris Ferguson and mission specialists Daniel Burbank, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joe Tanner and Steve MacLean, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut.


The Aug. 11 briefings are (all times Eastern):


9 a.m. -- Program and International Space Station Assembly Overview Briefing


  10:30 a.m. -- STS-115 Mission Overview Briefing
  noon -- STS-115 Spacewalk Overview Briefing
  1 p.m. -- NASA TV Video File
  2 p.m. -- STS-115 Crew News Conference


6 p.m. -- STS-115 Canadian Space Agency Briefing with Mission Specialist Steve MacLean (for Canadian media)


The STS-115 mission, set for 11 to 12 days, will install a new 17-ton segment of the space station's truss backbone that will add a new set of giant solar panels and associated batteries to the complex.


For NASA TV schedules, downlink information and links to streaming video, visit:


                         http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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Offline jacqmans

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Mission STS-115 with Steve MacLean
Media Briefing and Crew News Conference
 

Longueuil, Quebec, August 1, 2006 - Canadian Space Agency astronaut, Steve MacLean, will embark on his second space voyage during mission STS-115.  Space Shuttle Atlantis, destined for the International Space Station, will launch with MacLean aboard from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on August 27, 2006.

Steve MacLean will become the first Canadian to manipulate Canadarm2 and the second to perform a spacewalk. His extravehicular activities include contributing to the assembly of the International Space Station by installing a large truss segment and deploying a new set of solar arrays.

Media representatives are invited to a briefing on the Canadian content of mission STS-115 and Steve MacLean’s role. Journalists on site at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) can sit in on the live broadcast of the Johnson Space Center crew news conference in Houston; and will have the opportunity to take part in the question period. Journalists who cannot be on site at CSA, will be able to listen in only by dialing 1 888 265-0903 at 12:55 p.m.

 

WHEN:                         Friday, August 11, 2006

 

WHAT AND WHO:        

 

1:00 to 2:00 p.m.        Media Briefing

Ed Tabarah, Deputy Director, Canadian Astronaut Office, CSA

Danielle Cormier, Flight controller, CSA

Iain Christie, Director of Research and Business Development, Neptec

                                   

 

2:00 to 3:00 p.m.        Crew News Conference live from NASA (question period included)

                                   Via NASA TV

                                   Steve MacLean, CSA Astronaut, and the crew of STS-115

 

WHERE:                       Canadian Space Agency

                                   6767 Route de l'Aéroport

                                   Longueuil, Quebec

 

To listen in, dial 1 888 265-0903 and enter passcode  927963

 
- 30 -

For more information:
Julie Simard
Media Relations
(450) 926-4370
[email protected]
Jacques :-)

Offline Avron

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Canadian Space Agency (CSA) -- my tax dollars hard at work... Go Canada

Offline jacqmans

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Aug. 7, 2006

Grey Hautaluoma
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668

Kylie Clem
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111

RELEASE: 06-288

SHUTTLE, STATION MISSIONS AHEAD ARE MOST CHALLENGING EVER

Program managers and the six-member crew of the next space shuttle
Atlantis flight will participate in a series of media briefings
Friday, Aug. 11, at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. With the
remaining shuttle missions, NASA will embark on a series of flights
as difficult as any in history to complete the International Space
Station.

"The flights ahead will be the most complex and challenging we've ever
carried out for construction of the International Space Station in
orbit," said Mike Suffredini, NASA station program manager. "The
station literally becomes a new spacecraft with each assembly
mission, and that will be true starting this year with dramatic
changes in its cooling and power systems, habitable volume,
utilization capability as well as its appearance."

The station is nearly halfway through assembly. The next four flights
will bring new truss segments, massive structural girders, to the
complex. The new segments will increase the mass of the station by
almost 40 tons. Two of the trusses include huge sets of solar array
wings, totaling more than 17,000 square feet and more than 130,000
solar cells. The new segments include giant rotary joints to allow
the tips of the station "backbone" to move as the massive panels
track the sun.

Together, the new arrays will add 50 kilowatts of power for the
complex. The increased electrical power will set the stage for the
addition of European and Japanese laboratories that will far surpass
any previous research capability in space.

The installation of the new truss segments and unfurling of the arrays
require unprecedented robotic operations. Those operations will use
the shuttle and station's Canadian-built mechanical arms to
delicately maneuver school bus-sized station components into place.
The operations will rely heavily on the station's mobile transporter,
a sort of space railway that positions the robotic arm along the
truss to install the components.

Later this year, the station and shuttle crews face a unique challenge
to activate a permanent cooling system and the new power sources.
They must rewire the orbiting laboratory and change its electrical
supplies without interrupting the continuous operation of any of its
critical systems. Once the power grid is in place, additional shuttle
flights will launch a connecting node and the European and Japanese
laboratories.

"The assembly of the station on these flights has no parallel in space
history," Suffredini said. "We have planned, studied and trained for
these missions for years. We know they will be hard, and we may
encounter the unexpected. But we are eager to get started, and there
is tremendous excitement building in NASA and among our international
partners."

The station's assembly and maintenance in orbit, the long-duration
spaceflight experience gained aboard the complex, and the research
into the effects of long spaceflights contribute to NASA's plans for
future missions to return to the moon and travel beyond.

The current station represents only a fraction of its eventual
capabilities. Between now and station completion:
* The volume and mass of the station will more than double. The space
station will be larger than a five-bedroom house with a cabin volume
of 33,023 cubic feet. When completed, it will have a mass of almost a
million pounds.
* The number of research facilities on the complex will more than
triple. The percentage of total power dedicated to research will
increase by 84 percent.
* The total power generated by the complex will almost quadruple.
* The station's truss, currently 134 feet long, will grow to 354 feet,
the longest man-made object to fly in space.
* To construct the station, more than 100 international space flights
will have been conducted on five different types of vehicles launched
from four different countries.
* More than 140 spacewalks, totaling nearly 800 hours, dedicated to
assembly and maintenance of the space station will have been
completed. That is more spacewalks than were conducted in all of U.S.
space history before construction of the station began. * There have
been 115 space shuttle flights, of which 18 were dedicated to the
space station. With 15 remaining assembly flights planned to the
station, more than one-quarter of all shuttle flights will have been
dedicated to station assembly.

Friday's briefings about the mission will be carried live on NASA TV
beginning at 9 a.m. EDT. To participate, media should contact the
Johnson Space Center newsroom at 281-483-5111 by Aug. 9. For NASA TV
schedules, downlink information and links to streaming video, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station


-end-
 
Jacques :-)

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