An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) debrief session was held with Expedition 20/21 crew members Nicole Stott, KE5GJN and Robert Thirsk, VA3CSA on Tuesday, January 5. The feedback provided by the astronauts will help ARISS update program procedures.

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On Thursday, January 7, students attending the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" Marconi Commemoration Event in Rome, Italy participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with on-orbit astronaut Jeffrey Williams, KD5TVQ. The contact was facilitated by telebridge station W6SRJ in California. An audience of 200 watched as eleven questions were asked and answered. After the contact, Princess Elettra Marconi, daughter of Guglielmo Marconi and Mr. Dieter Isakeit of ESA ESRIN (European Space Research Institute) Corporate Communication Office & Communication and Knowledge Department, sent greetings to the ISS crew. Presentations were given by ARISS mentor Francesco De Paolis as well as Mr. Augusto Cramarossa, Italian Space Agency, Head of Strategy, National and International, Mr. Massimo Pucini, Deputy Mayor of Moteporzio Catone town and Mrs. Marina Ruggeri, Director Department of Electronics Engineering - University "Tor Vergata."

NASA will hold a briefing for journalists with the next set of residents of the International Space Station at 1 p.m. CST Thursday, Jan. 21, from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The briefings will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's Web site. Questions also will be taken from participating NASA locations.

The briefing participants are:
- Expedition 23 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson
- Expedition 23 Flight Engineer and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov
- Expedition 23 Flight Engineer and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko

NASA has issued a follow-up Request for Information, or RFI, for ideas from education institutions, science museums and other appropriate organizations about the community's ability to acquire and publicly display orbiters after the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program.

The original RFI in December 2008 noted that a potential shuttle recipient would have to pay an estimated $42 million for the cost of "safeing" an orbiter, preparing it for display and ferrying it to a U.S. destination airport. NASA has updated the requirements and tasks needed to make each orbiter safe for disposition. The agency will not ask recipients to provide the funds for this activity. Except for cost and scheduled delivery changes, the 2008 and 2010 RFIs are virtually the same. In this follow-up RFI, NASA revised the estimated display preparation and ferrying costs to $28.8 million.

Bill Dowdell, NASA Kennedy Space Center's deputy director for International Space Station and spacecraft processing, is available for satellite interviews from 6 to 9 a.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 22.

Dowdell will conduct the interviews from Launch Pad 39A, just outside space shuttle Endeavour's payload bay. Tranquility, the next pressurized element bound for the station, will be placed inside Endeavour on 39A for its targeted launch on Sunday, Feb. 7.

Dowdell has worked for NASA since 1989, beginning his career in the Space Shuttle Program as an agency and orbiter test director. He is NASA's manager responsible for giving the "go" to launch the station payload and the readiness of the orbiting laboratory to receive and carry out its installation. Dowdell holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Fairmont State College in Fairmont, W.Va., and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from West Virginia University in Morgantown.