NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson posted this image to her Twitter
account (@AstroPeggy) of her storing blood samples in the International Space
Station's ultra-cold freezer for eventual return to Earth.
Credits: NASA
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NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s final news conference from the International Space Station will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 30.
The 30-minute news conference will take place just days before
Whitson returns to Earth after spending more than nine months aboard the
orbiting laboratory, and breaking a number of records in space. Media may ask
questions from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston or Kennedy Space Center
in Florida, as well as by phone.
To attend the briefing at Johnson, U.S. media must request
credentials from the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 5 p.m. on
Tuesday, Aug. 29. To ask questions by phone, media must call the Johnson
newsroom no later than 12:40 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 30.
All media accreditation requests for Kennedy must be submitted by
2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 28, online at:
To access Kennedy, all media representatives must present two
forms of unexpired, government identification. One form must include a photo,
such as a passport or driver’s license. Questions about accreditation should be
directed to Jennifer Horner at jennifer.p.horner@nasa.gov
or 321-867-6598.
Whitson launched to the space station Nov. 17, from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is set to return Saturday, Sept. 2. She will land
in Kazakhstan at 9:22 p.m. (7:22 a.m. Kazakhstan time on Sept. 3) along with
NASA’s Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space
agency, Roscosmos. Fischer and Yurchikhin have been Whitson’s crew mates since
they arrived at the space station in April.
Whitson and Fischer will return to Houston’s Ellington Field on
Sunday, Sept. 3.
After landing, Whitson will hold the U.S. record for cumulative
time in space, with 665 days in space during three long-duration missions. She
was originally scheduled to return to Earth in June, but her mission was
extended in March, increasing the amount of valuable astronaut time available
for hundreds of experiments she and her crewmates participated in. She is the
woman who has spent the longest time in orbit during a single spaceflight (288
days). Whitson also holds the records for most spacewalks and time spent
spacewalking by a female astronaut. During her second mission, she became the
first woman to command the space station, and during this mission, she became
the first woman to command the station twice – she was station commander from
April 9 through June 1.
Find Whitson’s full biography at:
Follow Whitson on social media at: