Twitter Followers Coming From As Far Away As Australia

NASA invited 150 lucky people to a behind-the-scenes perspective from the press site at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the final launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Friday, April 29. The launch is scheduled for 1554 EDT.

The participants were selected randomly from more than 4,100 online registrants during a 24-hour opportunity in mid-March. Attendees represent 43 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Venezuela, and the U.K. Participants will share their experiences with their more than 3.7 million combined followers through the social networking site Twitter. On Sunday, the agency surpassed one million followers on its flagship Twitter account, @NASA.

Beginning at noon on April 28, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup when participants get to talk with NASA's Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati; Endeavour's Flow Director Dana M. Hutcherson; International Space Station Associate Program Scientist Tara Ruttley; astronaut Clay Anderson; and Principal Investigator of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2, Sam Ting. Participants also will tour Kennedy and get a spacesuit demonstration. The Tweetup culminates with the launch.

This is the fourth time NASA has invited its Twitter followers to experience a space shuttle launch. Previously, groups attended Atlantis' STS-129 and STS-132 missions and Discovery's STS-133 launch. NASA also hosts Tweetup events at other NASA centers.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/tweetup