NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, invite media to attend NASA Day in Baton Rouge activities May 3 at the University Laboratory School at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Special guests include current astronauts Col. Mark Vande Hei and Joseph Acaba who recently returned from the International Space Station in February 2018, as part of the Expedition 53/54 crew.

Media will have the opportunity to interview NASA leaders at 1 p.m. CDT at the Laboratory School, a K-12 institution opened on the university campus in 1915 as a demonstration school for primary and secondary education, leading initiatives in academics, arts and athletics. In addition to Acaba and Vande Hei, available for interviews are Jody Singer, deputy director of Marshall, Keith Hefner, director of Michoud, and Johnny Stephenson, director of Marshall’s Office of Strategic Analysis & Communications. Additionally, the NASA Rover Challenge team members from Louisiana State University will display the rover they designed and competed with in this year’s competition.

Throughout the day, Singer, Hefner and other NASA team members will meet with state leaders, lawmakers and the public.

From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., NASA exhibits displayed in the Louisiana Capitol Rotunda will give the public a look at work underway on the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and other NASA projects, including NASA-related educational initiatives at Louisiana universities and schools.

NASA Day in Baton Rouge recognizes the space agency’s partnerships with the State of Louisiana. NASA is tapping into the highly trained workforce at Michoud, the manufacturing center that built the external tank for the Space Shuttle Program, to build elements for SLS and Orion. Michoud provides vital support to NASA’s exploration mission and plays a key role in sending humans to deep-space destinations, including Mars.

Interested media should contact Angela Storey at angela.d.storey@nasa.gov or 256-544-0034.

For more information about Michoud, visit:

www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/michoud

For more information about NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:

www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall