SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT AC #31468

Oct. 10, 2006

James Hartsfield Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111

Gray Hautaluoma Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0668

MINNESOTA ASTRONAUT STEFANYSHYN-PIPER SET FOR INTERVIEWS

NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, a Minnesota native who performed two spacewalks during the Space Shuttle Atlantis' mission in September, is available for satellite interviews from 7:30 to 9 a.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 13.

Stefanyshyn-Piper and fellow spacewalker Joe Tanner installed a 17.5-ton, bus-sized new section of a girder-like truss on the International Space Station. Called the P3/P4 truss, the new component includes a second set of huge solar arrays for the station and a first giant rotary joint to allow the panels to follow the sun.

A native of St. Paul, Stefanyshyn-Piper is only the seventh woman to have walked in space. Her flight, designated shuttle mission STS-115, began a series of station assembly flights as challenging and complex as any in space history.

Piper's interviews will be carried live on the NASA TV analog satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude; transponder 5C, 3800 MHz, vertical polarization, with audio at 6.8 MHz.

For information about STS-115 and its crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

For Piper's biographical information, visit:

http://www11.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/stefanys.html