WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Following their safe arrival at the International Space Station, American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will participate in a pair of Earth to space calls Monday regarding their historic mission aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.
Wilmore and Williams will speak first at 1 p.m. ET with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Associate Administrator Jim Free, and Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche.
At 2:40 p.m., the astronauts will participate in a Q&A moderated by Chirag Parikh, deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and executive secretary for the White House's National Space Council.
NASA said the coverage of the call will stream live on NASA+, NASA Television, and the agency's website.
NASA's test flight to send its astronauts aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station successfully completed its first stage Thursday.
If everything works out as planned, the Starliner and its crew will return to Earth for a landing in White Sands, New Mexico, on June 14 from the International Space Station after spending more than a week aboard the microgravity laboratory.
The former Navy test pilots are the first to launch aboard Starliner to the space station as part of the U.S space agency's Commercial Crew Program.
The Program aims for safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry.
This partnership is opening access to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, science, and commercial opportunities. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and to Mars.
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