After 18 months of intense training, native Houstonian Shannon Walker has graduated and is a NASA astronaut.
Although all active astronauts reside in Houston, Walker is the first to have been born and raised in Space City. She is available for satellite interviews from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. CDT Tuesday, April 25. Media interested in interviewing her should contact Victor Scott at (281) 483-2636 or by e-mail at victor.j.scott@nasa.gov.
Walker and 10 classmates received official NASA astronaut pins in a private ceremony in February. Walker graduated from Westbury Senior High School in 1983 and received a bachelor’s in physics from Rice University in 1987. She began a career at NASA that year working as a robotics flight controller for space shuttle flights in Mission Control. She later returned to Rice and received a master’s and doctorate in space physics. When selected as an astronaut in 2004, Walker was working in the engineering offices of the International Space Station Program.
Walker’s training has included water and land survival, T-38 flight training and space shuttle and International Space Station systems. For biographical information on NASA astronauts on the Web, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/
The interviews will be carried live on the NASA Television analog satellite. The coordinates are: satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 5C, 3800 MHz, vertical polarization, with audio at 6.8 MHz.
