NASA Announces Media Opportunities For Undersea Mission

HOUSTON -- News media representatives will have the opportunity to
cover the 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO,
from up close or afar.

On Oct. 24, journalists are invited to participate in a media day at
the Mobile Mission Control Center, which supports the underwater crew
of the NEEMO mission aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's Aquarius Undersea Laboratory. The laboratory is
located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Key Largo.
Media representatives will be able to interview the NEEMO engineers
and scientists and participate in a news conference with the NEEMO
crew via video from the underwater habitat.

On Oct. 21, the NEEMO crew will be available for satellite interviews
from 3 to 4 p.m. CDT. On Oct. 26, astronaut/aquanaut Shannon Walker
will conduct interviews during a simulated spacewalk under water from
1 to 1:30 p.m. Other interview slots are available on a limited basis
with Walker, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya
Onishi, Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques and
Steven Squyres of Cornell University.

To participate in either opportunity, reporters should contact
Lynnette Madison at lynnette.b.madison@nasa.gov, or the Johnson Space
Center newsroom at 281-483-5111, no later than 5 p.m. Oct. 18.

The live satellite interviews will air on NASA's Live Interview Media
Outlet channel. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by
uplink provider Americom. It is on satellite AMC3, transponder (C,
located 87 degrees west, downlink frequency 3865.5 MHz based on a
standard C-band, horizontal downlink polarity. FEC is 3/4, data rate
is 6.0 Mbps, symbol rate is 4.3404 Msps, transmission DVB-S, 4:2:0.
The interviews also will be broadcast on NASA Television.

The 2011 NEEMO mission will be the first to simulate humans visiting
an asteroid. A six-member crew led by Walker will spend 13 days
beneath the surface in the Aquarius habitat, the world's only
underwater laboratory. They will test concepts and techniques for
asteroid exploration.

Other crew members include James Talacek and Nate Bender of the
University of North Carolina in Wilmington.

In addition, NASA astronauts Stan Love, Richard Arnold and Mike
Gernhardt will participate in the mission as pilots of the DeepWorker
submersible, a small submarine that will serve as an underwater
stand-in for the Space Exploration Vehicle, which might someday be
used to explore the surface of an asteroid.

For information about the NEEMO 15 mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/neemo

To follow the mission via Twitter, visit:

http://www.twitter.com/NASA_NEEMO

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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