Newly Returned Space Station Crew Available for Interviews

Newly Returned Space Station Crew Available for Interviews

The recently returned 12th crew of the International Space Station, U.S. Commander Bill McArthur and Russian Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev, will be available for satellite interviews from 7 to 9 a.m. EDT Friday, May 12. To participate, media should contact the Johnson newsroom at (281) 483-5111 or Stephanie Stoll at (281) 483-9071 or via pager at (713) 508-0581 by 4 p.m. EDT Thursday.

After six months in orbit, McArthur and Tokarev landed in a Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan on April 8. They arrived in the United States last week. During 189 days in space, they conducted two spacewalks, contacted a record number of students via amateur radio and became the first crew to dock a spacecraft to all three Russian station docking ports. For International Space Station information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

McArthur, a North Carolina native, is a retired Army colonel who has flown on three shuttle missions in addition to his stay on the space station. He has logged more than 224 days in space. Also a veteran space flier, Tokarev was born in Kap-Yar in Russia’s Astrakhan Region. His first flight was aboard the shuttle in 1998, a 10-day mission that delivered four tons of supplies to the station to prepare it for arrival of its first crew, Expedition 1.

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