The first briefing, at 19:00 CEST Wednesday 6 October, will see participants from ESA, NASA and SpaceX present an overview of the Crew-3 mission and discuss the upcoming crew rotation.
This will be followed by a news conference at 20:00 CEST Thursday 7 October, featuring all four Crew-3 crew members: ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, and NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron.
Crew-3 is scheduled to be launched on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, at 08:43 CEST Saturday 30 October. Sunday 31 October will remain a backup date, should a second launch attempt be required.
Matthias and Kayla will be mission specialists aboard the Dragon capsule, working closely with commander Raja and pilot Thomas to monitor the spacecraft during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight.
A launch on 30 October will see Crew-3 arrive at the International Space Station early 31 October, after an approximately 22-hour journey, for a short overlap with the astronauts that flew to the Station as part of the Crew-2 mission. Crew-2 includes ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet who recently became the first French and fourth ESA astronaut in command of the International Space Station.
Crew briefings and participants:
Wednesday, 6 October
19:00 CEST – Mission overview press conference, with the following participants:
- Kathryn Lueders, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Johnson Space Center
- Dana Weigel, deputy manager, International Space Station, NASA Johnson Space Center
- Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX
- Frank De Winne, manager, International Space Station Program, ESA
Thursday, 7 October:
20:00 CEST – Crew mission press conference with the following participants:
- Raja Chari, spacecraft commander
- Tom Marshburn, pilot
- Kayla Barron, mission specialist
- Matthias Maurer, mission specialist
Media who pre-registered with NASA will have the opportunity to ask questions Anyone else who would like to submit a question for the crew can do so on social media using the hashtag #AskNASA. More about Matthias Maurer and the Cosmic Kiss mission is available on the mission minisite. You can also follow @esaspaceflight on Twitter or Matthias himself on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Watch both briefings live on ESA Web TV Two.