Dec. 20, 2002

John Ira Petty
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N02-084

INTERNATIONAL SPACE SHUTTLE SCIENCE MISSION PREVIEW

     The 16-day flight of NASA Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-
107), on the multi-faceted science research mission, will be 
previewed in a series of briefings at the Johnson Space 
Center, Houston on Jan. 3, 2003. 

The briefings, featuring multi-center question and answer 
capability for reporters at NASA centers, will be broadcast 
on NASA Television.

Seven astronauts, led by Commander Rick Husband, are 
scheduled to be launched no earlier than Jan. 16, 2003. The 
astronauts are participating in a dual-shift mission, during 
which dozens of experiments will be conducted round-the-
clock, for more than 70 international investigators in areas 
of astronaut health and safety, advanced technology 
development, Earth and space sciences.

The briefings, which were first conducted in June before the 
flight was postponed, will include a Mission Overview 
beginning at 2 p.m. EST, and the Crew News Conference at 
3:30 p.m. EST. There will be no individual round-robin 
interviews with the crewmembers.

The science briefings associated with the STS-107 mission, 
which were broadcast in June, will be replayed on NASA TV 
during the day.

The lineup includes:

STS-107 MISSION OVERVIEW BRIEFING, JSC, 2 p.m. EST
Kelly Beck, STS-107 Lead Flight Director
John Charles, STS-107 Mission Scientist
Dr. Roger Crouch, Senior Scientist, NASA Headquarters

STS-107 CREW NEWS CONFERENCE, JSC, 3:30 p.m. EST
Rick Husband, Commander
Willie McCool, Pilot
Dave Brown, Mission Specialist 1
Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2
Mike Anderson, Mission Specialist 3, Payload Commander
Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist 4
Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist 1 (Israeli Space Agency)

NASA TV is on GE-2, Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at 
85 degrees West longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.


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