WASHINGTON, July 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, along with crewmates Oleg Skripochka of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Hazzaa Ali Almansoori of the United Arab Emirates, a Roscosmos spaceflight participant, will discuss the upcoming Expeditions 60 and 61 crew increments aboard the International Space Station at a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, July 15, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The news conference will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The crew will be available for in-person and remote media interviews following the conference.

Meir, Skripochka and Almansoori are scheduled to launch Sept. 25 aboard the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Once aboard the space station, they will join six other crew members: NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan; European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Alexey Ovchinin.

To request credentials to participate in person or to reserve an interview opportunity, U.S. reporters must contact Johnson’s newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 5 p.m. Thursday, July 11. Reporters who wish to participate in the news conference by telephone must call Johnson’s newsroom no later than 12:45 p.m. July 15. Those following the briefing on social media may ask questions using #askNASA.

Meir, Skripochka and Almansoori will join Koch and Morgan during their extended stays on the space station to support research on the effects of long-duration human spaceflight. The data gathered from the extended stays will show the variability in responses humans might have to living in space for longer than six months, which will help scientists prepare for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

During Expeditions 60 and 61, the crew will support about 250 investigations and technology demonstrations not possible on Earth. These pursuits broaden our knowledge of Earth, space, physical and biological sciences that benefit our everyday lives, in addition to enabling long-duration exploration into deep space for the future.

This will be the first expedition into space for Meir, who grew up in Caribou, Maine, and was selected for astronaut training in 2013. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown University, a master’s degree in space studies from the International Space University and a doctorate in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. Before becoming an astronaut, Meir studied the physiology of animals in extreme environments, leading to her participation in diving expeditions to the Antarctic and Belize. At the time of her selection as an astronaut, Meir was working as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital.

Follow Meir on social media at:

https://twitter.com/astro_jessica

https://www.instagram.com/astro_jessica

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/media-invited-to-news-conference-interviews-with-next-space-station-crew-300880984.html

SOURCE NASA