MEDIA ADVISORY

Middle and high school students from Australia, China, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, and the United States will gather at Kennedy Space Center in July to launch science experiments they designed and developed themselves on NASA's Space Shuttle mission STS-107.

These six student experiments will fly on STS-107, now scheduled to launch on July 19, under the auspices of the STARS global education program operated by Space Media Inc., a subsidiary of SPACEHAB Inc. Based in Houston, Texas, SPACEHAB builds space habitat modules and cargo carriers. SPACEHAB will be flying a new Research Double Module (RDM) on STS-107, loaded with experiments developed by NASA-sponsored researchers.

STARS students from Melbourne, Australia, are flying an experiment designed to determine how microgravity affects the web-building behavior of spiders. Students from Beijing, China, have designed a "Silkworms in Space" experiment to test the hypothesis that silkworm larvae will develop differently in microgravity than they do in Earth gravity. The Israeli students' "Chemical Garden" experiment will study how microgravity affects crystalline fiber growth and structure. The Japanese student experiment will examine how microgravity affects the development of Medaka fish fry. Students at the Liechtenstein Gymnasium are studying how microgravity affects the behavior of carpenter bees. Students at Fowler High School in Syracuse, New York, developed the U.S. experiment, "Ants in Space," to study how microgravity affects ants' tunneling behavior. (NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe met with the Fowler High School STARS students during a visit to Syracuse on April 12.)

From April 24-28, 2002, STARS students from all six countries met in Boulder, Colorado, for a "dress rehearsal," or Mission Simulation Test, of the flight of their science experiments. BioServe Space Technologies, a nonprofit NASA-sponsored Commercial Space Center, hosted the students' mission simulation test at facilities on the campus of the University of Colorado-Boulder. (For more information on STARS, see http://www.spacehab.com/stars.)

On Space Day 2000, student developers of one of the first STARS experiments ever flown in space participated in ceremonies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., to present the results of their research to the Museum. High school students from the Dougherty County School System High School/High Tech Program in Albany, Georgia, had flown an experiment on STS-93 in July 1999 that explored how microgravity affects the development, growth and behavior of Painted Lady butterflies. Butterflies that hatched in space during their experiment are now on display in the Museum.

SPACEHAB Inc. is a leading provider of commercial space services. The company develops, owns, and operates habitat and laboratory modules and cargo carriers aboard NASA's Space Shuttles. Its Johnson Engineering subsidiary supports astronaut training and space station configuration management at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and builds space-flight trainers and mockups. SPACEHAB's Astrotech subsidiary provides commercial satellite processing services at facilities in Florida and California. SPACEHAB's newest strategic growth initiative, SPACEHAB Huntsville, will provide customer-focused end-to-end services to the space research community at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Linda Billings
Director of Communications
SPACEHAB, Inc. - Washington Office
202/488-3500 x. 201; toll-free 888/647-9543
billings@hqspacehab.com

Kimberly Campbell
STARS Payload Manager
SPACEHAB, Inc.
Houston, TX
Ph. 713/558-5049
Cell ph. 832/276-4681