NASA and its international partners have selected astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov as the next crew for the International Space Station, designated as Expedition 13.

Williams is a U.S. Army colonel and veteran of one space flight. He will serve as Expedition 13 flight engineer and NASA science officer. He flew aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist in May 2000 on a 10-day space station assembly mission. During that mission, he performed a spacewalk lasting almost seven hours. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. He has master's degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif., and the Naval War College, Newport, R.I. He was selected as an astronaut in 1996.

Vinogradov, a veteran of one long-duration spaceflight, will command Expedition 13. He flew aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to the Russian Mir Space Station as flight engineer for the 24th resident crew in 1997, a 198-day mission. During the mission, he performed five spacewalks. A graduate of Moscow Aviation Institute, he was selected as a cosmonaut in 1992.

Astronaut Mike Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin were selected to train as the back-up crew.

Williams and Vinogradov will launch aboard a Russian Soyuz (TMA-8) in March 2006. They will discuss their mission during a news conference Thursday, Jan. 12 at 3 p.m. EST (2 p.m. CST), at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. For information about the space station and crew biographical information on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station