Media Release: Charlotte County Resident is One of 150 Selected to Attend NASA Tweetup for Mars Rover Launch, November 23 and 25, 2011

It’s time for another NASA Tweetup and guess what? I’m over the moon with excitement! Following is the media release I’m distributing about my attendance and above is one of my favorite photos from my first NASA Tweetup, final launch of space shuttle Endeavour on May 16, 2011.

Hope you’ll follow along with me on Twitter (@jenniferhuber) for my next space adventure November 23 and 25. It should be a blast!

And, you’ve probably noticed the dates are around Thanksgiving. No, I won’t be dining on Tang for my dinner, I’m heading up to Jacksonville to spend it with my cousin (and hopefully other family members).

Read on for the press release…

Charlotte County Resident is One of 150 Selected to Attend NASA Tweetup for Mars Rover Launch, November 23 and 25, 2011

NASA Twitter Followers Will Tweet from Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

PORT CHARLOTTE, FLA. (November 13, 2011) – NASA will bring together 150 Twitter followers to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for a two-day Tweetup, November 23 and 25, 2011. The Tweetup is expected to culminate in the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Charlotte County resident Jennifer Huber has been selected as one of 150 @NASA Twitter followers to attend and Tweet the event. Curiosity is anticipated to arrive at the Red Planet’s Gale crater in August 2012.

During the two-year mission, the rover will investigate whether a selected area of Mars offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and will preserve evidence about life if it existed.

As a NASA Tweetup attendee, Huber and the other 149 Twitter users will interact with engineers and scientists as well as tour the Kennedy Space Center. If all goes as scheduled, participants will view the spacecraft launch on Friday, Nov. 25. In addition, participants will meet other tweeps and members of NASA’s social media team. Attendees were selected through a lottery system in which more than 1,050 @NASA Twitter followers registered.

This will be Huber’s third NASA Tweetup. She participated in the STS-134 NASA Tweetup for the final launch of space shuttle Endeavour in April and May 2011 and attended the historic final landing of space shuttle Atlantis on July 21, 2011.

She is the Public Relations Manager for the Charlotte Harbor Visitor & Convention Bureau and accomplished travel blogger (SoloTravelGirl.com) and Twitterer. She’s been named a Top 50 Travel Twitterer to Follow and One of 101 Women Bloggers to Watch. Follow her Tweets at twitter.com/jenniferhuber.

NASA Tweetup participants are traveling from across the United States and the globe to attend. View the list of list of registered attendees on the NASA Tweetup Twitter account: http://twitter.com/NASATweetup/mars-curiosity

NASA held its first Tweetup on Jan. 21, 2009, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. NASA’s Tweetup Twitter account is http://twitter.com/NASATweetup and participants will be using #NASATweetup in their updates while tweeting. Information about NASA Tweetup can be viewed on http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup.

About the Mars Science Laboratory Mission
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Mars Science Laboratory is the fourth space mission launching this year. Aquarius, launched June 10 to study ocean salinity, was the first; Juno, launched Aug. 5 to study the origins and interior of Jupiter; and the twin GRAIL orbiters, which departed for the moon on Sept. 10. The MLS Curiosity rover is equipped with 10 science instruments and will search Mars for evidence it has had environments favorable for microbial life. The rover will use a laser to look inside rocks and release the gasses so that its spectrometer can analyze and send the data back to Earth. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Find additional information about the Mars Science Laboratory mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl. The press kit for the launch is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/MSLLaunch.pdf.