December 3, 1998. Copyright, 1998, Graphic News. All rights reserved.

SPACE STATION PARTS TO MATE
By Margot Nesdale

LONDON, December 3, Graphic News:  SPACE SHUTTLE Endeavour is scheduled to blast off today (Dec 3) on a mission to mate the American and Russian modules which form the heart of the International Space Station.
The shuttle will be launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida carrying the U.S.-made connecting module Unity, the second component of the $60 billion space station.
The first part, the Russian-built power and propulsion tug Zarya, was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 20. Built with U.S. financial support, it will provide communications facilities for the new space station, which also involves Europe, Japan and Canada.
Unity will be the primary docking point for shuttles during construction of the station.
Once in orbit, Endeavour will chase Zarya through space in a series of tightly choreographed manoeuvres before they rendezvous several days into the 13-day mission.
Using the shuttleŐs robotic arm, the six astronauts on board will capture the unmanned Zarya and join Unity to its nose. Two crew members will then perform three spacewalks to connect ZaryaŐs power supply to Unity and complete connections so that the two modules can be pressurised. The astronauts, who will be the first to enter the new station in space, albeit wearing space suits, will also examine some minor malfunctions. Endeavour will then separate and return home, leaving the as yet unpiloted station in orbit.
Three U.S. space shuttles and two unmanned Russian rockets will undertake 45 missions to assemble more than 100 further parts during the stationŐs construction, expected to last until 2004.
But the station will not receive its first human occupants until January 2000. The Russian-built living quarters, already 18 months behind schedule because of the countryŐs financial crisis, will be sent up in July 1999.
When completed the station will be longer than a football field and have more living and working space than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
The mammoth station will orbit Earth as an outpost for scientific research, including research designed to return humans to space untravelled since the last Apollo moon mission in the early 1970s.
/ENDS

Sources: Reuters, European Space Agency, Aviation Week & Space Technology