CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will host a media event at 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Aug. 12, to highlight the next hardware that will fly to the International Space Station. The permanent multi-purpose module, or PMM, will fly aboard space shuttle Discovery on its STS-133 mission, targeted to launch on Nov. 1.
During the event, reporters at Kennedy’s Space Station Processing Facility will have the opportunity to speak with mission managers and team members involved in processing the elements for flight. Media planning to attend must arrive at Kennedy’s news center by 12 p.m. for transportation to the event. Participants must be dressed in full-length pants, flat shoes that entirely cover the feet and shirts with sleeves.
Reporters without permanent Kennedy credentials should submit their requests online at: https://media.ksc.nasa.gov
Foreign journalists must apply for credentials by 4:30 p.m., Aug. 4, and U.S. reporters must apply by noon on Aug. 11.
The module will carry a variety of spare parts and supplies to the station as well as Robonaut 2, or R2. The module will be left on the station and will be used for microgravity experiments in fluid physics, materials science, biology and biotechnology. R2, a humanoid robot created through a joint project between NASA and General Motors, was originally intended to be an Earth-bound prototype. But engineers wanted to see how it fared in microgravity, so the robot is being sent to space in Discovery’s cargo bay.
R2 will be shipped from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to Kennedy on Aug. 8 to begin processing for flight.
For more information about the STS-133 mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts133
For more information about R2, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/robonaut
For more information about the space station, its research and crews, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
