NASA Astronaut Chris Williams to Discuss Upcoming Launch, Mission

NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Oct. 1, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to highlight the upcoming mission of astronaut Chris Williams to the International Space Station.

The news conference will stream live on NASA’s website and YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

The Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, targeted to launch Nov. 27 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, will carry Williams on his first flight, as well as Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev of Roscosmos, to the space station for an eight-month mission as part of Expeditions 73/74.

Media interested in participating must contact the newsroom at NASA Johnson no later than 5 p.m., Monday, Sept. 29, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. Media interested in participating by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom by 10 a.m. the day of the event.

Selected as a candidate in 2021, Williams graduated with the 23rd astronaut class in 2024. He began training for his first space station flight assignment immediately after completing initial astronaut candidate training.

Williams was born in New York City, and considers Potomac, Maryland, his hometown. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Stanford University in California and a doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where his research focused on astrophysics. Williams completed medical physics residency training at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was working as a clinical physicist and researcher at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston when he was selected as an astronaut candidate.

The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation enabling research not possible on Earth. For nearly 25 years, NASA has supported a continuous U.S. human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory, where astronauts have learned to live and work in space for extended periods of time. The space station is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s next great leaps in human exploration at the Moon under the Artemis campaign and Mars.

Learn more about the International Space Station:

https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station

-end-

Jimi Russell / Joshua Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
james.j.russell@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov

Shaneequa Vereen
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
shaneequa.y.vereen@nasa.gov