December 9, 1997

Debbie Rahn/Jennifer McCarter
Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone: 202/358-1639)

Rob Navias
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone: 281/483-3671)

Release: N97-89

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Mir 24 Crew News Conference Set

The three Mir 24 crewmembers, including U.S. astronaut David Wolf, will hold a news conference from the Mir space station on Friday, Dec. 12, starting at approximately 9:05 a.m. CST. The news conference, to be broadcast on NASA Television, will include multi-center question-and-answer capability for reporters at participating NASA centers.

The news conference will be carried through the Russian Altair satellite during a 30-minute window for television capability from the Mir, to be transmitted to the U.S. by satellite from the Russian Mission Control Center. Interpretation will be provided for questions posed in English to the Russian crewmembers and their answers in English for members of the news media.

Mir 24 Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov have been aboard Mir since August and are scheduled to be replaced by another cosmonaut crew in late January. Wolf is nearing the end of his third month aboard the Mir. He is scheduled to be replaced in late January by astronaut Andy Thomas, who will be launched to the Mir as part of the STS-89 crew as the final U.S. astronaut to occupy the Russian outpost.

NASA Television is carried on GE-2, Transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, vertical polarization, frequency 3880 Mhz, audio 6.8 Mhz.

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