STS-88 - Mission Highlights

Mission Highlights

Node 1, named Unity, was the first space station hardware delivered by the space shuttle. It has two Pressurized Mating Adapters (PMA), one attached to either end. One PMA is permanently mated to Zarya, and the other is used for orbiter dockings and crew access to the station. Unity also contains an International Standard Payload Rack used to support on-orbit activities, which was activated after the fifth Shuttle/Station assembly flight.

To begin the assembly sequence, the crew conducted a series of rendezvous maneuvers similar to those conducted on other Shuttle missions to reach the orbiting FGB. On the way, Currie used the Shuttle's robot arm to place Node 1 atop the Orbiter Docking System. Cabana completed the rendezvous by flying Endeavour to within 10 metres (33 ft) of the FGB, allowing Currie to capture the FGB with the robot arm and place it on the Node's Pressurized Mating Adapter.

Once the two elements were docked, Ross and Newman conducted two scheduled spacewalks to connect power and data cables between the Node, PMAs and the FGB. The day following the spacewalks, Endeavour undocked from the two components, completing the first Space Station assembly mission.

Endeavour's astronauts toured the new International Space Station on 11 December 1998, entering the Unity and Zarya modules for the first time, and establishing an S-band communications system that enables U.S. flight controllers to monitor the outpost's systems. Reflecting the international cooperation involved in building the largest space complex in history, Commander Robert Cabana and Russian Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov opened the hatch to the U.S.-built Unity connecting module and floated into the new station together.

The rest of the crew followed and began turning on lights and unstowing gear in the roomy hub to which other modules would be connected in the future. Each passageway within Unity was marked by a sign leading the way into tunnels to which new modules would later be connected.

About an hour later, Robert Cabana and Sergei Krikalyov opened the hatch to the Russian-built Zarya control module, which was the nerve center for the station in its embryonic stage. Joined by Pilot Frederick Sturckow and Mission Specialists Jerry Ross, James H. Newman and Nancy Currie, Cabana and Krikalyov hailed the historic entrance into the International Space Station and said the hatch opening signified the start of a new era in space exploration.

Ross and Newman went right to work in Unity, completing the assembly of an early S-band communications system that allows flight controllers in Houston to send commands to Unity's systems and to keep tabs on the health of the station with a more extensive communications capability than exists through Russian ground stations. The astronauts also conducted a successful test of the videoconferencing capability of the early communications system, which was used by the first crew to permanently occupy the station in November 2000 (Expedition 1). Newman downlinked greetings to controllers in the station flight control room in Houston and to astronaut Bill Shepherd, who commanded the first crew and lived aboard the station with Krikalyov and Cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko.

Krikalyov and Currie replaced a faulty unit in Zarya which controlled the discharging of stored energy from one of the module's six batteries. The battery had not been working properly in its automatic configuration, but the new unit was functioning normally shortly after it was installed.

The astronauts also unstowed hardware and logistical supplies stored behind panels in Zarya, relocating the items for use by the Shuttle crew that was to visit the station in May 1999 and by Shepherd's expedition crew. The astronauts also completed their initial outfitting of the station.

The hatches to Zarya and Unity were closed before Endeavour undocked from the new station, leaving the new complex to orbit the Earth unpiloted.