Astronaut Scott Kelly Available For Interviews

Joshua Buck

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- After a five-month stay aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly will be available for live satellite interviews on Tuesday, March 22, from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Kelly will be available from 6 to 8 a.m. CDT. The interviews will air live on NASA Television.

To arrange an interview, reporters should contact producer Derek Sollosi at 281-792-7515 or derek.sollosi-1@nasa.gov by 2 p.m. Monday, March 21. Video b-roll from Kelly's mission will air from 6:30 to 7 a.m. on March 22 on NASA TV.

Kelly and his crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 7 (Oct. 8 Baikonur time). During the mission, Kelly served as commander of Expedition 26, the 26th crew to live and work aboard the space station. The trio spent 159 days in space and landed in Kazakhstan on March 16.

Aboard the station, the Expedition 25 and 26 crew members worked on more than 150 microgravity experiments in human research; biology and biotechnology; physical and materials sciences; technology development; and Earth and space sciences.

Kelly is from Orange, N.J. He has degrees from the State University of New York Maritime College and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He served as a pilot on shuttle mission STS-103 in 1999 and a commander on STS-118 in 2007.

The interviews air on NASA TV's Live Interview Media Outlet channel. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by uplink provider Americom.

It is on satellite AMC 3, 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.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For Kelly's complete biography, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/kellysj.html.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

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Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly

Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly wears a blue wrist band that has a peace symbol, a heart and the word 'Gabby' to show his support for his sister-in-law U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as he rested onboard a Russian Search and Rescue helicopter shortly after he and fellow crew members Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri landed in their Soyuz TMA-01M capsule near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, March 16, 2011. NASA Astronaut Kelly, Russian Cosmonauts Skripochka and Kaleri are returning from almost six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 25 and 26 crews.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Expedition 26 Crew And Capsule Land Safely In Kazakhstan

Joshua Buck

Headquarters, Washington

WASHINGTON -- Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Russian Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft on the Kazakhstan steppe Wednesday, wrapping up a five-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

Kaleri, the Soyuz commander, was at the controls of the spacecraft as it undocked at 12:27 a.m. EDT from the station's Poisk module. The trio landed at 3:54 a.m. (1:54 p.m. local time) at a site northeast of the town of Arkalyk.

Working in frigid temperatures, Russian recovery teams were on hand to help the crew exit the Soyuz and adjust to gravity. Kaleri and Skripochka will return to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow, while Kelly will fly directly home to Houston.

The trio launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 8, 2010. As members of the Expedition 25 and 26 crews, they spent 159 days in space, 157 of them aboard the station.

During their mission, the Expedition 25 and 26 crew members worked on more than 150 microgravity experiments in human research; biology and biotechnology; physical and materials sciences; technology development; and Earth and space sciences.

A quick succession of international space vehicles arrived on the station's loading docks during Expedition 26. The Japanese Kounotori2, or "white stork," H-II Transfer Vehicle 2; the Russian cargo ship Progress 41; the European Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle; and space shuttle Discovery delivered more than 11 tons of supplies necessary for working and living aboard the station.

Kelly has logged more than 180 days in space, and Kaleri has more than 770. Skripochka has completed his first space mission.

Expedition 27 Commander and Russian Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency remain aboard the station.

A new trio of Expedition 27 flight engineers, NASA astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev, will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome no earlier than March 29.

For more information about the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

For a schedule of upcoming flights to the station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/stationflights.

To view Coleman's and Garan's mission updates on their Twitter pages, visit http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Cady and http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Ron.

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NASA TV To Cover Soyuz Landing And Launch Events

Joshua Buck

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Kelly Humphries

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- NASA Television will cover the March 16th return of three crew members who have called the International Space Station home for more than five months. The March 29th launch of three new residents to the station also will be televised and streamed on the agency's website.

NASA's Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly, Soyuz Commander Alexander Kaleri and Russian Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka are scheduled to land the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan at 2:48 a.m. CDT (1:48 p.m. Kazakhstan time) on March 16. Before departing, Kelly will hand over command of the station to Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev during a ceremony at 3:45 p.m. on March 14.

On March 29, NASA Flight Engineer Ron Garan, Russian cosmonaut and Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev and Russian Flight Engineer Andrey Borisenko will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:41 p.m. (6:41 a.m. Baikonur time March 30) in a Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft.

They will join the Expedition 27 commander Kondratyev; NASA astronaut Cady Coleman; and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli. The trio has been aboard the station since mid-December 2010.

NASA TV's scheduled coverage includes (all times Central):

Friday, March 11

2 p.m. -- Video File of the Soyuz TMA-21 crew news conference at Star City, Russia, and visit to Red Square in Moscow

Monday, March 14

3:45 p.m. -- Expedition 26 change of command ceremony

Tuesday, March 15

7:30 p.m. -- Soyuz TMA-01M crew farewells and hatch closure (hatch closure at 8 p.m.)

11 p.m. -- Undocking coverage (undocking at 11:24 p.m.)

Wednesday, March 16

1:30 a.m. -- Deorbit burn and landing in Kazakhstan (deorbit burn at 1:57 a.m., landing at 2:48 a.m.)

11 a.m. -- Video File of the undocking and landing

4 p.m. -- Video File of the landing and post-landing activities; including post-landing interview with Kelly and the cosmonauts' return to Chkalovsky Airfield, Star City, Russia

Thursday, March 17

11 a.m. -- Video File of the Soyuz TMA-21 crew departure for Baikonur ceremony at Star City, Russia

Friday, March 25

11 a.m. -- Video File of the crew activities in Baikonur

Sunday, March 27

11 a.m. -- Video File of the rocket mating and rollout to the launch pad in Baikonur

Monday, March 28

4 p.m. -- Video File of the final pre-launch crew news conference and Russian State Commission meeting in Baikonur

Tuesday, March 29

6 p.m. -- Video File of the crew pre-launch activities in Baikonur

6:45 p.m. -- Launch coverage (launch at 7:41 p.m.)

10 p.m. -- Video File of pre-launch, launch and post-launch interviews

Thursday, March 31

8:30 p.m. -- Docking coverage (docking at 9:10 p.m. followed by the post-docking news conference from Mission Control, Moscow)

11:30 p.m. -- Hatch opening and welcoming ceremony (hatch opening and welcoming ceremony at 12:10 a.m. April 1)

Friday, April 1

1:30 a.m. -- Video File of docking, hatch opening and welcoming ceremony

For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

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NASA TV to Show Russian Space Station Cargo Ship Arrival

Stephanie Schierholz

Headquarters, Washington                                        

 

Kelly Humphries

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- The residents of the International Space Station will receive a second shipment of food, fuel and supplies this week. NASA Television will provide a live broadcast of the Russian cargo ship's arrival Saturday, Jan. 29.

Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman, Páolo Néspoli, Alexander Kaleri, Oleg Skripochka and Dmitry Kondratyev will be standing by as the 41st unpiloted Russian Progress resupply craft automatically berths to the Pirs docking compartment at 8:40 p.m. CST. NASA TV coverage of the new Progress' arrival at the station will begin at 8 p.m.

The cargo ship is carrying three tons of supplies for the six crew members. It is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:31 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 27 (7:31 a.m. Baikonur time on Jan. 28). NASA TV will not provide coverage of the launch.

The shipment is set to arrive on the heels of the Jan. 27 rendezvous and arrival of the Kounotori2 H-II Transfer Vehicle 2 developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, that is carrying additional supplies for the station is set to launch Feb. 15 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

For more information about these three upcoming cargo missions for the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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