FCC to Host Live Video Q&A with NASA Astronaut Aboard the International Space Station

The event will be held in the JBK Theater on campus and is free to attend. It is open to the public.

Koch is currently a part of the Expedition 59 and 60 crew that launched to the International Space Station in March 2019. She is scheduled to remain on the International Space Station until February 2020, which would be the longest single spaceflight ever completed by a woman.

Koch’s sister, Dee Dee Johnsen, is a first-year student at FCC.

The live video Q&A, called a downlink, is expected to last between 20 and 25 minutes. Questions for Koch will come from FCC students.

The event will also be livestreamed on the College website, www.frederick.edu.

Koch was selected in June 2013 as one of eight members of the 21st NASA astronaut class. Her Astronaut Candidate Training included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in International Space Station systems, spacewalks, robotics, physiological training, T‐38 flight training, and water and wilderness survival training.

Koch’s mission in space continues a career full of adventure and remote field experience. She has served as a Research Associate in the United States Antarctic Program, spending time at the Amundsen‐Scott South Pole Station and Palmer Station in Antarctica as a member of the Firefighting Teams and Ocean/Glacier Search and Rescue Teams. While working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), she served as a Field Engineer in Alaska and a Station Chief of the American Samoa Observatory, located in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. She has also worked as an Electrical Engineer at both the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Space Department.

For more information about this event, contact Caroline Cole at ccole@frederick.edu or 240-629-7918.

Frederick Community College makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities for College-sponsored events and programs. If you have accommodation needs, please call 301.846.2408. To request a sign language interpreter, please call 240.629.7819 or 301.846.2408 (Voice) or email interpreting. Sign language interpreters will not be automatically provided for College-sponsored events without a request for services. To guarantee accommodations, requests must be made at least five workdays in advance of a scheduled event.

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