March 03, 2009

Michael Curie
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
michael.curie{at}nasa.gov

Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters
Johnson Space Center, Houston
202-483-5111
nicole.cloutier-1{at}nasa.gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: M09-034

NASA ANNOUNCES CHANGE FOR RETURN OF STATION CREW MEMBERS

HOUSTON -- The International Space Station Program has announced a
change in how two future crew members will return home. NASA
astronaut Nicole Stott and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert
Thirsk will swap seats on the space shuttle and Russian Soyuz
spacecraft to help ensure a timely homecoming for Thirsk.

Thirsk will launch to the station on a Soyuz in May and return to
Earth on that same vehicle in November, instead of aboard space
shuttle Atlantis at the end of the STS-129 mission. Stott, who will
launch to the station on shuttle Discovery's STS-128 mission, will
return aboard Atlantis with the STS-129 crew. She had been slated to
come home aboard the Soyuz that Thirsk now will occupy.

The change is in case of delays to future shuttle missions,
specifically STS-129, which currently is scheduled to launch in
November 2009. Such a delay could result in extending Thirsk's
mission beyond the six-month duration preferred for station crew
members.

For more information about the space station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

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