NASA TV COVERAGE SET FOR SPACE STATION CREW EXCHANGE

NASA Television will broadcast the launch of the next International Space Station crew Oct. 12 and the landing of the current crew Oct. 23.

NASA's Expedition 18 Commander and Science Officer Mike Fincke, Soyuz Commander and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, a U.S. citizen, are scheduled to launch Sunday, Oct. 12, at 3:01 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz TMA-13 craft will dock to the station on Thursday, Oct. 14. Garriot will fly to the station under an agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

NASA Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff, who has been on the station since June, will remain with Fincke and Lonchakov until the arrival of space shuttle Endeavour on its STS-126 mission, targeted to launch in November. NASA astronaut Sandy Magnus will arrive on that flight to replace Chamitoff, who will come home on Endeavour.

Expedition 17 and Soyuz Commander Sergei Volkov, Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko and Garriott will return to Earth Thursday, Oct. 23, at about 11:46 p.m. in their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft now docked to the station. Volkov and Kononenko have been aboard the complex since April.

From Oct. 8-11, NASA TV will broadcast video b-roll of crew rotation activities, including training, pre-launch events in Baikonur, the Oct. 10 rollout of the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft to the launch pad, and the final pre-launch news conference Oct. 11 at noon.

A joint crew news conference with all six crewmembers is scheduled Monday, Oct. 20 with a multi-center question and answer capability for media at NASA centers. A time for the news conference will be set in the near future. A change of command ceremony for the two crews will be broadcast on NASA TV. The time for that event also will be set soon.

The events to be broadcast on NASA TV's public and media channels include (all times approximate, EDT):

Oct. 12,
Sunday 1:15 a.m. - Expedition 18 / spaceflight participant video b-roll of prelaunch activities
2:00 a.m. - Expedition 18 / spaceflight participant live launch coverage (launch scheduled at 3:01 a.m.)
6 a.m. - Expedition 18 / spaceflight participant postlaunch video file

October 14, Tuesday
4 a.m. - Expedition 18 / spaceflight participant Soyuz docking to station and post-docking news conference live coverage (docking scheduled for 4:38 a.m.)
5:30 a.m. - Expedition 17 / spaceflight participant hatch opening to station live coverage (hatch opening scheduled for 6 a.m.)
9 a.m. - Expedition 17 / spaceflight participant docking & hatch opening video file feed

October 23, Thursday
4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Expedition 17 / spaceflight participant farewell & Soyuz hatch closure live coverage (hatch closure scheduled for 5:15 p.m.)
8 p.m. - 8:45 p.m. - Expedition 17 / spaceflight participant Soyuz undocking from the station live coverage (undocking scheduled for 8:20 p.m.)
10:30 p.m. - 1:00 a.m. - Expedition 17 / spaceflight participant Soyuz deorbit burn and landing in Kazakhstan live coverage (deorbit burn scheduled for 10:56 p.m.; landing scheduled for 11:46 p.m.)

October 24, Friday
3 a.m. - Expedition 17 / spaceflight participant Soyuz post-landing video file feed

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

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv