[sarex] NASA SETS BRIEFING TO PREVIEW ISS SPACEWALKS

[Arthur Rowe]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468



	Jan. 23, 2007

NASA Sets Briefing to Preview Series of Space Station Spacewalks

HOUSTON - NASA will preview an unprecedented series of four spacewalks 
to be conducted from the International Space Station during the next 
month in a media briefing scheduled for Friday, Jan. 26. The briefing 
will air live on NASA Television and streamed on the Internet at 
http://www.nasa.gov.

The 1 p.m. CST briefing will originate from NASA's Johnson Space Center, 
Houston, and will include questions from media representatives at 
participating NASA locations. Reporters are asked to call their 
preferred field center before the briefing and spacewalks to confirm its 
availability.

Expedition 14 Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Suni 
Williams will begin the series of spacewalks with a six and a half hour 
excursion on Jan. 31 and subsequent spacewalks scheduled on Feb. 4 and 
Feb. 8. Those three spacewalks will be conducted using U.S. spacesuits 
and will each start from the station's Quest airlock. The fourth 
spacewalk, scheduled for later in February, will be conducted by 
Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin using Russian 
spacesuits from the station's Pirs airlock.

Participants in the Friday, Jan. 26, press briefing will include:

-- Kirk Shireman, deputy International Space Station program manager
-- Derek Hassmann, International Space Station spacewalk flight director
-- Glenda Laws, lead spacewalk officer for Expedition 14
-- Julie Robinson, International Space Station acting program scientist

The U.S. spacewalks will bring on line new portions of the station's 
cooling system, expanded with components that were activated during a 
space shuttle mission in December. Lopez-Alegria and Williams also will 
assist in the retraction of heat-rejecting radiators on the station's P6 
truss, install some external devices to stow cargo and install cabling 
for a new power transfer system for future shuttle flights, among other 
tasks. On the fourth spacewalk, Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will remove a 
stuck antenna from the Russian ISS Progress 23 cargo spacecraft docked 
to the aft end of the station. Removing the antenna will ensure it can 
safely undock in early April.

Coverage of the Jan. 31 spacewalk on NASA TV will begin at 8 a.m. 
Coverage of the Feb. 4 and 8 spacewalks will begin at 6:30 a.m. Media 
briefings will follow the conclusion of each spacewalk and also will air 
on NASA TV and the agency's homepage.

For NASA TV downlink, schedules and streaming video information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv <http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html>


For more about the crew's activities and station sighting opportunities, 
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station 
<http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html>