The 16-day flight of Columbia on the multi-faceted STS-107 science research mission will be previewed through a series of briefings to be held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Jan. 3, 2003. The briefings, featuring multi-center question and answer capability for reporters at NASA centers, will be broadcast on NASA Television.

Seven astronauts, led by Commander Rick Husband, are scheduled to be launched no earlier than Jan. 16, 2003, on a dual-shift mission in which dozens of experiments will be conducted round-the-clock for more than 70 international investigators in areas of astronaut health and safety, advanced technology development and Earth and space sciences.

The briefings, which were first conducted in June before the flight was postponed, will include a Mission Overview beginning at 2 p.m. EST, and the Crew News Conference at 3:30 p.m. There will be no individual round-robin interviews with the crewmembers as was the case back in June.

Earlier in the day, the science briefings associated with the STS-107 mission, which were broadcast in June, will be replayed on NASA TV.

The lineup includes:

STS-107 MISSION OVERVIEW BRIEFING, JSC, 1 p.m. CST

• Kelly Beck, STS-107 Lead Flight Director
• John Charles, STS-107 Mission Scientist
• Dr. Roger Crouch, Senior Scientist, NASA Headquarters

STS-107 CREW NEWS CONFERENCE, JSC, 2:30 p.m. CST

• Rick Husband, Commander
• Willie McCool, Pilot
• Dave Brown, Mission Specialist 1
• Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2
• Mike Anderson, Mission Specialist 3, Payload Commander
• Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist 4
• Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist 1 (Israeli Space Agency)

NASA TV can be found on GE-2, Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at 85 degrees West longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz.

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