The crew that will deliver a new Soyuz crew-return vehicle to the International Space Station in October and NASA's Chief Astronaut Charlie Precourt will hold a press conference Thursday, Aug. 29, at 1 p.m. EDT from NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. The press conference will be broadcast on NASA Television with multi-center question-and-answer capability for reporters at participating NASA centers.

The Soyuz 5 taxi crew includes Commander Sergei Zalyotin, Flight Engineer Frank DeWinne and nominated space flight participant Lance Bass.

The crew is scheduled to launch Oct. 28 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, to deliver a new Soyuz spacecraft to the space station for use as an escape vehicle, if required. After spending eight days aboard the orbiting research platform, the crew will undock Nov. 7 aboard the Soyuz spacecraft now attached to the Station.

Media planning to attend must contact the JSC newsroom at 281/483-5111 no later than 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 28, to arrange credentials. Transportation at JSC will be provided and media should plan to arrive at the JSC main gate no later than 12 p.m. EDT Aug. 29. Reporters interested in one-on-one interviews with Bass should directly contact his publicity staff, Cheryl Maisel at 310/289-6200 or Jill Fritzo at 212/373-6120.

Zalyotin served as the Russian cosmonaut commander of the final mission to the Russian Mir space station in 2000. DeWinne, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut from Belgium, is flying to the International Space Station under a commercial agreement between ESA and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos). The third crewmember aboard the Soyuz spacecraft is Lance Bass, a singer with the group 'N Sync, who also is flying into orbit under a commercial agreement with Rosaviakosmos.

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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