As the team of federal and contractor employees at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. begins another exciting and challenging year, Center Director Chris Scolese and the Goddard workforce will welcome Senator Barbara Mikulski for a town hall event on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, beginning at 10:30 a.m. EST.

2016 will see Goddard’s involvement in several launches including the start of a three-year journey by a spacecraft to an asteroid to pluck samples, a joint astronomy mission with Japan and the next generation of geostationary Earth-observing systems.

Goddard will also be sending several payloads to the International Space Station including ones that will demonstrate real-time, relative space navigation technology, study high-energy cosmic rays over an extended period and one involving a compact bundle of 56 X-ray telescopes to gather data on the densest matter allowed in nature.

News media wishing to cover the town hall event need to contact the Goddard Office of Communications no later than 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, to arrange accreditation. Reporters should contact Goddard News Chief Edward Campion, by either phone at 301-286-0697 or via e-mail at edward.s.campion@nasa.gov.

For media unable to attend, photos and video related to the event will be available at:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?12115

U.S. Senator Mikulski is Vice Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 – 1987 before becoming a U.S. Senator in 1987. She is the longest serving woman in the history of the U.S. Congress.

For information about NASA Goddard, visit: www.nasa.gov/goddard

Edward Campion
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0697
edward.s.campion@nasa.gov