[image-50] NASA and its International Space Station partners will hold a news conference in Paris at 10 a.m. EST Thursday, Dec. 18, to discuss the upcoming one-year expedition on the International Space Station. NASA Television and the agency's website will carry the briefing live.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly will launch to the space station in March 2015 to begin a yearlong stay aboard the orbiting laboratory -- the longest single space mission ever undertaken by an American. He will be joined by Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) on this one-year mission.

Thursday’s briefing will take place at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris and will include participants from NASA, its international partner space agencies, and UNESCO. During the briefing, questions will be taken from media in attendance and on the phone from participating partner locations.

The briefing participants will be:

-- Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut and one-year mission crew member

-- Mikhail Kornienko, Roscosmos cosmonaut and one-year mission crew member

-- Andreas Mogensen, European Space Agency astronaut and visiting crew flight engineer

-- Soichi Noguchi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency chief astronaut

-- Jeremy Hansen, Canadian Space Agency astronaut

For those attending in person, the deadline to request credentials is Tuesday, Dec. 16. For more information about media accreditation, contact Nicola Firth (Nicola.Firth@esa.int). Reporters attending at partner locations should contact those centers' newsrooms for specific deadlines.

U.S. media may participate at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston or by phone. Reporters must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than noon CST Wednesday, Dec. 17, to request approval. Approved media will be notified that afternoon and those participating by phone will need to call the Johnson newsroom at least 15 minutes before the start of the Thursday briefing. Media will not be able to connect once the briefing begins.

The public also may ask questions via social media by using the hashtag #askNASA.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For NASA TV satellite coordinates, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-tv-on-satellite-amc-18c/

For more information about the one-year mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/oneyear

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Follow Scott Kelly and the station on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/stationcdrkelly

and

http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station

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