HOUSTON — NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will host a crew news conference at 1 p.m. CDT (2 p.m. EDT) Tuesday, March 19, to preview the May launch of an American, an Italian and a Russian to the International Space Station.

NASA Television and the agency’s website will broadcast the briefings live.

Karen Nyberg of NASA, Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency will discuss their Expedition 36-37 mission. The trio is set to launch to the station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft May 28 and return to Earth in mid-November. Social media followers, who will be at Johnson for a NASA Social focusing on scientific research aboard the space station, will participate in the briefing and ask questions of the crew.

Nyberg, Parmitano and Yurchikhin are three of the six crew members comprising Expeditions 36 and 37. When they arrive at the station, they will join NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexsandr Misurkin.

Following the news conference, interview opportunities are available in-person, by phone or through the Internet. To reserve an interview opportunity, news media representatives must contact Johnson’s newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 5 p.m., Friday, March 15.

For those attending the briefing in Houston, the deadline for U.S. reporters to request credentials is March 15. The deadline for international journalists is Wednesday, March 13. Reporters who want to ask questions from other NASA centers should contact those centers’ newsrooms for specific deadlines.

To participate by telephone, reporters must contact Johnson’s newsroom at least 15 minutes before the briefing. Media will not be able to connect after the briefing has started. Journalists participating in person will receive priority. Questions by phone and social media will be taken as time permits.

For more information on the NASA Social event registration visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/social/social_ISS_JSC_mar2013.html

To see training and mission posts from Parmitano on Twitter, follow: @astro_luca

To join the conversation about the International Space Station on Twitter, follow the hashtag #ISS. To learn more about all the ways to connect and collaborate with NASA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/connect

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

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