NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, a Minnesota native who performed two spacewalks during the Space Shuttle Atlantis’ mission in September, is available for satellite interviews from 7:30 to 9 a.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 13.
Stefanyshyn-Piper and fellow spacewalker Joe Tanner installed a 17.5-ton, bus-sized new section of a girder-like truss on the International Space Station. Called the P3/P4 truss, the new component includes a second set of huge solar arrays for the station and a first giant rotary joint to allow the panels to follow the sun.
A native of St. Paul, Stefanyshyn-Piper is only the seventh woman to have walked in space. Her flight, designated shuttle mission STS-115, began a series of station assembly flights as challenging and complex as any in space history.
To participate in the Oct. 13 interviews, media should contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, at 281-483-5111 by 3 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Oct. 12. Piper’s interviews will be carried live on the NASA TV analog satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude; transponder 5C, 3800 MHz, vertical polarization, with audio at 6.8 MHz.
For information about STS-115 and its crew, visit:
For Piper’s biographical information, visit:
