The next visitors to the International Space Station will discuss their upcoming flight during a news conference at 2 p.m. CDT Monday, July 23. The Expedition 16 crew includes Commander Peggy Whitson, the first female to lead a long-duration spaceflight. The news conference from NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, will be broadcast live on NASA Television with questions taken from media at other NASA facilities. Reporters should call their local NASA center to confirm its participation in the event.

In October, Whitson, Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who is from Malaysia, will launch on a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Shukor is flying under an agreement with Russia. Shukor will return to Earth with Expedition 15 crew members Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov after nine days aboard the station.

During their six months in space, veterans Whitson and Malenchenko will be joined by Expedition 16 flight engineers Dan Tani, Leopold Eyharts of the European Space Agency and Garrett Reisman.

After Monday's news conference, Expedition 16 crew members will be available for round-robin interviews. Shukor will take part in the news conference but not the interviews. Media may arrange participation by phone or in person by contacting Gayle Frere at 281-483-8645 by 5 p.m. on July 20.

Tani will begin his work with the expedition during space shuttle Discovery's STS-120 mission, targeted for launch Oct. 20. Space shuttle Atlantis' STS-122 mission, which is targeted for launch Dec. 6, will deliver Eyharts to the outpost and return Tani to Earth. Reisman will head to the station on space shuttle Endeavour's STS-123 mission, targeted for launch Feb. 14, 2008. He will replace Eyharts and return to Earth on a later shuttle flight.

earlier related report

ISS orbit to be adjusted July 24 – mission control

Moscow (RIA) Jul 19 – The International Space Station's orbit will be adjusted July 24 to prepare for the docking of the U.S. space shuttle Endeavor, due to be launched August 7, Russia's Mission Control Center said Wednesday.

Corrections to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically before launches of Russian cargo ships and U.S. shuttles to compensate for Earth's gravity and to ensure successful dockings.

The correction is due to start at 2:21 a.m. Moscow time with the help of the Progress M-60 cargo ship, which is already docked with the ISS.

"Its boosters will be activated for 1,176 seconds (about 20 minutes), while the orbit is to be raised 10 kilometers," a Mission Control spokesman said, adding that the ISS is currently at an altitude of 330 kilometers over earth's surface.

"The correction will be made without the crew's participation," he said.

The next launch of the Soyuz manned spacecraft to the ISS is tentatively scheduled for October 10, and is aligned with U.S. efforts for the Endeavor mission on August 8 at 3.07 a.m. Moscow time (August 7, 11.07 p.m. GMT), Russia's space agency said earlier .

The Endeavor is already being prepared for its rollout to a launch pad.

Source: RIA Novosti