The crew that will deliver a new Soyuz crew-return
vehicle to the International Space Station in October and
NASA’s Chief Astronaut Charlie Precourt will hold a press
conference Thursday, Aug. 29, at 1 p.m. EDT from NASA’s
Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. The press conference
will be broadcast on NASA Television with multi-center
question-and-answer capability for reporters at participating
NASA centers.
The Soyuz 5 taxi crew includes Commander Sergei Zalyotin,
Flight Engineer Frank DeWinne and nominated space flight
participant Lance Bass.
The crew is scheduled to launch Oct. 28 from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, to deliver a new Soyuz spacecraft to
the space station for use as an escape vehicle, if required.
After spending eight days aboard the orbiting research
platform, the crew will undock Nov. 7 aboard the Soyuz
spacecraft now attached to the Station.
Media planning to attend must contact the JSC newsroom at
281/483-5111 no later than 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 28,
to arrange credentials. Transportation at JSC will be
provided and media should plan to arrive at the JSC main gate
no later than 12 p.m. EDT Aug. 29. Reporters interested in
one-on-one interviews with Bass should directly contact his
publicity staff, Cheryl Maisel at 310/289-6200 or Jill Fritzo
at 212/373-6120.
Zalyotin served as the Russian cosmonaut commander of the
final mission to the Russian Mir space station in 2000.
DeWinne, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut from
Belgium, is flying to the International Space Station under a
commercial agreement between ESA and the Russian Aviation and
Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos). The third crewmember aboard the
Soyuz spacecraft is Lance Bass, a singer with the group ‘N
Sync, who also is flying into orbit under a commercial
agreement with Rosaviakosmos.
NASA TV can be found on GE-2, Transponder 9C, vertical
polarization at 85 degrees West longitude, 3880 MHz, with
audio at 6.8 MHz.
