Skip to main content
Telescopes and space missions

Telescopes and space missions

First module of international space station launched

20 Nov 1998

The first component of the $60 billion International Space Station (ISS) was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan a few hours ago after a delay of almost a year. The $200 m Zarya cargo module forms the initial propulsion system and command base for the new space station. Russian flight controllers will monitor the module over the next few days before handing over to the International Space Station Flight Control Room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The module will remain uninhabitable until the delivery of a life-support systems next summer.

The 24 ton Zarya (meaning “daybreak”) module is based on the long experience the Russian Space Agency has had with the Mir space station. Unlike the US space station Skylab, which was until Mir the largest object in orbit, the module can stay in space for 430 days without re-fuelling. The Russian space company Khrunichev built Zarya under contract to Boeing Aerospace.

After launch Zarya will move into a circular orbit to make it easier for the space shuttle Endeavour to rendezvous with it on 3 December. Astronauts will then dock the US-built module ‘Unity’ with Zarya. The new 500 ton station is to be built over the next six years by 44 flights, making it the largest and most complex manmade object in space.

The International Space Station is made up by five partners, United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency. Only ten of ESA’s fourteen member states Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland are involved in the project. However, a sixth partner may soon join the list. NASA has approached the UK government to discuss using some UK technologies, such as Matra Marconi’s ion thrusters, on the project. “We’re in the early stage of negotiations” said a spokesperson from the British National Space Centre.

Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors