On Saturday, May 31, University of North Dakota graduate Karen Nyberg is scheduled to blast off into space with six of her colleagues for a 14-day mission to deliver and install "Kibo" (hope) to the International Space Station.  Kibo is the first manned Japanese facility where astronauts can perform various experimental activities using microgravity, high level vacuum and vast area.  Nyberg will secure Kibo with the shuttle’s arm and then join Akihiko Hoshide for the attachment of Kibo to Harmony.  Once Installed, Nyberg and Hoshide will test the new Japanese arm system setting the stage for its initial deployment.  For a complete description of mission, read the official Mission Press Kit (http://www.und.edu/PressKit.pdf).

Nyberg was born in October 1969 in Parkers Prairie, Minn.  After graduating as valedictorian at Henning High, near Vining, Minn, where she grew up, she pursued a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of North Dakota and graduated summa cum laude in 1994.  She completed graduate research at the University of Texas at Austin BioHeat Transfer Laboratory where she investigated human thermoregulation and experimental metabolic testing and control, specifically related to the control of thermal neutrality in space suits.  Nyberg has received many special honors and awards and on Saturday will join only six other Minnesotans who have been to space.

Join Nyberg and her crew on NASA TV (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html) Saturday, May 31, at 5:02 p.m. EDT as they begin their 122 nautical mile journey.