WASHINGTON – News conferences featuring Crew-9 mission managers are set ahead of a post-hurricane rocket launch this weekend from the Space Coast.
The lead-up to Crew-9 has been a bit beleaguered to no fault of its own. What had originally been a crew of four excited space travelers was cut to two so that there would be room to retrieve NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been at the space station since June.
Beyond that, Crew-9 was delayed on Tuesday to no earlier than 1:17 p.m. Saturday in light of Hurricane Helene. Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague and Alex Gorbunov arrived at Kennedy Space Center the Saturday prior.
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After one-on-one media interviews around 11:30 a.m. Friday at Kennedy Space Center, a Crew-9 panel dubbed “Space Station 101″ will take place at 1:15 p.m. with the following participants, according to NASA:
- NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
- Robyn Gatens, director, NASA’s International Space Station Program, and acting director, NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Division
- Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program
- John Posey, Dragon engineer, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
At 5 p.m., a final prelaunch news conference at Kennedy Space Center will include the following participants:
- NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
- Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
- Dina Contella, deputy manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
- Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program
- William Gerstenmaier, vice president, Build & Flight Reliability, SpaceX
- Brian Cizek, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
Further on, should the launch take place as planned on Saturday afternoon, a post-launch news conference is set for 3 p.m.
Participants include:
- NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy
- Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Dana Hutcherson, deputy program manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
- Dina Contella, deputy manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
- Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX
ClickOrlando.com will plan to stream the news conferences live at the top of this story.
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