SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

Oct. 20, 2006

Katherine Trinidad Headquarters, Washington 202-358-3749

James Hartsfield Johnson Space Center, Houston

BALTIMORE NATIVE TO DISCUSS ROLE ON NASA'S NEXT SHUTTLE FLIGHT

Bob Curbeam, a NASA astronaut who will fly aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in December, will be available for interviews by satellite from 7 to 8:45 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 24.

Curbeam will be making his third spaceflight after performing duties as a mission specialist on two previous missions, STS-85 in 1997 and STS-98 in 2001. He will be conducting three spacewalks during the 11-day mission to the International Space Station to rearrange the complex's power and cooling systems. The changes will bring online electricity generated by a second giant set of solar panels added to the station during September's shuttle mission. The changes will almost double the electrical power available to the station's systems.

Curbeam was born and raised in Baltimore. He received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in 1984 and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif., in 1990. He also received a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1991. Before his selection as an astronaut in 1994, Curbeam was an instructor in the Weapons and Systems Engineering Department at the Naval Academy.

Curbeam will be joined aboard Discovery by STS-116 Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Bill Oefelein and mission specialists Joan Higginbotham, Nick Patrick, Suni Williams and Christer Fuglesang, a European Space Agency astronaut. Williams will remain aboard the station for six months. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, currently aboard the station, will return to Earth on Discovery.

For Curbeam's biographical information, visit:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/curbeam.html

Curbeam'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. B-roll video of Curbeam's training for the mission will air at 6:30 a.m. EDT. For NASA TV downlink, schedules and streaming video information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about STS-116 and its crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle