Space station commander Suni Williams prepares for a spacewalk. Photo Credit/NASA Photo
Just days before she is scheduled to return to Earth after a four month mission, International Space Station commander Suni Williams will join with fellow NASA astronaut Kevin Ford on Thursday to host a live two-way event with middle and high school students whose experiments reached the orbiting science laboratory in early October.
The event, sponsored by the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, the U. S. Department of Education and others in celebration of International Education Week, is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 15, from 11:35 a.m. to 1 p.m., EST.
Thursday’s live video-conference is scheduled for broadcast to a wide audience on NASA-TV as well as the website, http://ncesse.org/isswebcast.
Williams, Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko will board a Soyuz capsule docked to the space station on Sunday for their descent to Earth in Kazakhstan.
NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, soon to become space station commander. Photo Credit/NASA Photo
Williams, who watched over the 23 student experiments after they arrived aboard the SpaceX Dragon commercial re-supply craft on Oct. 11, will return to Earth with the experiments. The capsule’s touchdown is scheduled 8:53 p.m., EST, or in the predawn Monday northeast of Arkalyk in remote Kazakhstan. Ford will take Williams place as the station’s commander.
SpaceX Dragon reaches space station with supplies, student experiments. Photo Credit/NASA Photo
Thursday’s direct program audience will include an estimated 9,500 students from communities that supported the classroom/space station experiment collaboration. They sponsored 1,904 science proposals from which the 23 flight experiments were chosen for flight.
The astronauts and students are expected to discuss the spaceflight experience, the values of science and engineering and the career opportunities they represent to students.
For a preview of the event, including supporting materials, the National Air and Space Museum has compiled a video library of short YouTube presentations at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC3EF1BDB5C2CE723&feature=edit_ok