International Space Station Overview

FIRST STATION MODULES LAUNCH NEW ERA OF SPACE EXPLORATION

Launched from opposite sides of the world, the first International Space Station components, Zarya and Unity, will begin a new era of exploration as 16 nations band together in space to improve life on Earth and extend the reach of the human race.

The International Space Station will allow humankind to harness as never before one of the fundamental forces of nature – gravity – to perform research that may result in new medicines, materials and industries on Earth. When completed, the station will provide more than 60 times as much power to scientific research as was available on the Russian Mir space station. The station's scientific studies, performed in six state-of-the-art laboratories, may even lead to a new understanding of the fundamental laws of nature while they pave the way for the future human exploration of deep space.

Even before its launch, the International Space Station has opened new frontiers on Earth by overcoming barriers of language, culture and technical differences worldwide. Partners in the United States-led station include Canada, 11 member nations of the European Space Agency, Japan and Russia. Italy and Brazil also are contributing. As the first truly international space program, the station fulfills a promise from the Apollo Program, which left a plaque on the moon saying "We came in peace for all mankind."

Assembling the station will be an unprecedented task, turning Earth orbit into an ever-changing construction site. More than 100 elements will be joined over the course of 45 assembly flights using the Space Shuttle and two types of Russian rockets. An international cast of astronauts and cosmonauts will do much of the work by hand, performing more space walks in just five years than have been conducted throughout the history of space flight. They will be assisted by a new generation of robotic arms, hands and perhaps even free-flying robotic "eyes".

From just the station's orbital construction, the world will learn many lessons that will apply to future efforts in space. As the station takes shape, a new star – eventually to become one of the brightest objects in the night sky -- will become ever more visible from Earth.

The Zarya module, named with a Russian word meaning "Sunrise" to symbolize the dawn of a new era in space, is owned by the U.S. but built by Russia. It will be launched on a three-stage Russian Proton Rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakstan, on Nov. 20 to begin the station's assembly.

Less than two weeks later, the Space Shuttle Endeavour will launch on Shuttle mission STS-88 with an international crew to carry aloft the U.S.-built Unity connecting module. The Unity module was named for its basic function and for the station program's spirit of global cooperation and achievement. Unity, a six-sided module, will be the basic building block to which all future U.S. modules will attach. Unity will be attached to Zarya to begin the station's orbital assembly.

Astronaut Robert D. Cabana (Col., USMC), 49, a veteran of three space flights, will command Endeavour. First-time space flyer Frederick Sturckow (Major, USMC), 37, will serve as pilot. Serving as mission specialists aboard Endeavour will be Nancy J. Currie, Ph.D. (Lt. Col., USA), 39, a two-time space veteran; Jerry L. Ross (Col., USAF), 49, a five-time Shuttle flyer and four-time space walker; James H. Newman, Ph.D., 42, a two-time space flyer and veteran space walker; and Russian Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, 40, who has flown once on the Shuttle and twice on the Russian Mir space station, accumulating more than one year, three months in orbit and conducting seven space walks.

Cabana will steer Endeavour to a rendezvous with Zarya on the third day of the flight, and Currie will use the Shuttle's robotic arm to capture the Russian-built spacecraft and join it to Unity. Ross and Newman will then perform three space walks on later days to finish connections between the two components. When Endeavour departs to return home, it will leave a new, as yet unpiloted, space station in orbit. Endeavour's mission will be an image of many flights to come, where large station components will be attached using robotic equipment before final connections are made by space walking astronauts.

Next year, five more flights to assemble the station will follow, bringing a Russian- built and launched living quarters, two Space Shuttles filled with interior supplies, an early exterior framework and the first huge U.S. solar arrays to provide power to the growing station. In January 2000, a permanent human presence aboard the station begins with the launch of an international crew of three.

The assembly in orbit is scheduled to be completed in 2004. The final, football field-sized station will have a mass of more than 1 million pounds and over an acre of solar panels. it will include a U.S. laboratory, two Russian research modules, a European laboratory, a Japanese laboratory and a Canadian station robotic arm.

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Updated: 12/01/1998

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