NASA announced media briefings at 2 and 3 p.m. EDT, Thursday to preview the next mission to the international space station and to review the accomplishments of the onboard crew.

The news conferences are at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston and will be broadcast live on NASA TV. Questions will be taken from media at participating NASA centers.

At 2 p.m., the Expedition 12 Preflight Briefing will provide an overview of the next mission. Expedition 12 Commander William McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev, along with spaceflight participant Gregory Olsen, will launch at 11:54 p.m. EDT, Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on a Soyuz rocket.

McArthur and Tokarev will stay on the orbiting complex for six months. Under a commercial contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency, Olsen will spend 10 days in space and return to Earth with the Expedition 11 crew.

The 3 p.m. Expedition 11 Mission Status Briefing will review station operations and the crew’s return to Earth. Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips and Olsen will land in Kazakhstan at 9:08 p.m. EDT, Monday, Oct. 10. Krikalev and Phillips will complete a six-month mission that included the space shuttle’s Return to Flight.

For continental North America, NASA TV is carried on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. Beginning October 1, it will be available in Alaska and Hawaii on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-7, transponder 18C, 137 degrees west longitude, 4060 MHz, vertical polarization. A Digital Video Broadcast compliant Integrated Receiver Decoder is required for reception. Through September 30, it’s available in Alaska and Hawaii in analog on AMC-7, at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization.

For information about NASA TV, including digital downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the international space station on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home