September 5, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

SPACE STATION: TURNING A HOUSE INTO A HOME

LONDON, September 5, Graphic News: A LONG awaited advance in NASA shuttle operations to build the International Space Station (ISS) is about to begin with this weekÕs launch of Atlantis.

The flight is the first of three shuttle missions planned before the end of the year, followed with eight more in 2001, to furnish and finish a space station thatÕs more than two years behind schedule.

This represents a doubling in shuttle flights compared with the paltry three missions in 1999 and five in 1998, when RussiaÕs cash-shortage curtailed work on their contribution to the ISS.

In an effort to ensure flight safety as the pace picks up NASA and its prime shuttle contractor, United Space Alliance, have hired several hundred more people, including experienced shuttle veterans.  The space agency also is modernizing the shuttle to make it safer. Atlantis, making its 22nd flight, has been fitted with a new Honeywell multi-fuction electronic display or Òglass cockpit.Ó

ÒWeÕre starting to embark on a set of activities that is probably as complex as anything that weÕve ever done in the space business, including landing on the moon,Ó shuttle programme manager Ron Dittemore said.

ÒWe have tens of flights, assembly flights, tens of spacewalks and these are all related.Ó

Atlantis will carry 2.5 tons of space station supplies on a 10-13-day mission. A U.S.-Russian crew of seven will unpack the shuttle and a further 2 tons of supplies from a Russian Progress transport cargo ship thatÕs already waiting for them, and hook up equipment both inside and outside the outpost orbiting some 230 miles (426 km) above the Earth.

Everything had been static pending the arrival of the Zvezda living quarters module. Its flawless docking in July, after more than two years of delay, broke the shuttle logjam, making possible a four-month mission to the station by two Russians and one American planned to begin on October 30.

RussiaÕs economic troubles had raised questions about its ability to keep its commitments to the $60 billion international station being built jointly by the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan. The first components of the ISS, the U.S. Unity and Russian Zarya units, have been orbiting in space since 1998.

In addition to stocking the empty living quarters module to Òturn an empty house into a homeÓ, the STS-106 crew will also perform one of the most spectacular extra vehicular activities (EVA) of the space programme when an American and a Russian climb 110 feet (33.5 metres) up the outside of the ISS to install cables. The EVA is the equivalent of climbing an eleven-storey building rising out of the shuttleÕs payload bay.

Discovery will lift-off in October with the first major truss that will extend beyond the modules already in place to carry electronics and communications equipment. Then Endeavour will arrive in November with a U.S. power supply and Atlantis in January with Destiny, AmericaÕs lab module.

At least 35 more space missions will be needed to build the station. As yet, the Zvezda module provides only enough room for three people in comparatively cramped conditions.

/ENDS

Sources: NASA, Reuters, Associated Press, Aviation Week and Space Technology

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EDS -- NOTE THERE ARE TWO PHOTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE TO GO WITH THIS GRAPHIC

GN11490: Crew of mission STS-106

GN11491: Mission patch

CAPTION TO PHOTOGRAPH GN11490

STS106-S-0002 (June 2000) --- Five NASA astronauts and two cosmonauts representing the Russian Aviation and Space Agency take a break in training from their scheduled September 6, 2000 visit to the International Space Station. Astronauts Terrence W. Wilcutt (right front) and Scott D. Altman (left front) are mission commander and pilot, respectively, for the mission. On the back row are the mission specialists. They are (from left) cosmonaut Boris V. Morukov, along with astronauts Richard A. Mastracchio, Edward T. Lu and Daniel C. Burbank and cosmonaut Yuri I. Malenchenko. Morukov and Malenchenko represent the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. MUST CREDIT NASA

/ENDS