To students, teachers, and communities across the SSEP network–

Since retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet after the July  2011 flight of STS-135, Atlantis – which carried Intrepid, the second SSEP experiments payload – transport of all U.S. astronauts to and from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) required Russian Soyuz vehicles. America is now on track to again fly astronauts. Today NASA issued the following press release –

September 16, 2014
NASA to Make Major Announcement Today About Astronaut Transport to the International Space Station

NASA will make a major announcement today at 4 p.m. EDT regarding the return of human spaceflight launches to the United States. The agency will make the announcement during a news conference from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

A brief question-and-answer session with reporters on site will take place during the event. Media will be able to ask more detailed questions related to the program in a teleconference shortly afterward.

News conference participants at Kennedy are:

– NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
– Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana
– Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Lueders
– Astronaut and former ISS Expedition crew member Mike Fincke

The teleconference will be streamed live on NASA’s website at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to the 4 p.m. streaming video of the announcement, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

To all SSEP communities, you can watch the Press Conference live right here at the SSEP National Blog, in the NASA TV portal below. 

NASA TV

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S., and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with NanoRacks LLC, working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory. SSEP is the first pre-college STEM education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space venture.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), and Subaru of America, Inc., are National Partners on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.