INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

The United States in 1984 initiated a program to build a space station—a place to live and work in space—and invited its allies in Europe, Japan, and Canada to participate in the project, which came to be called "Freedom." In 1993 the new presidential administration of Bill Clinton seriously considered canceling the station program, which had fallen behind schedule and was over budget. Space officials in Russia suggested as an alternative that the United States merge its space station program with the planned Russian Mir-2 program.

The United States accepted this suggestion and made it a key element of the redesign of what came to be called the International Space Station (ISS). The existing partners in the Freedom program issued a formal invitation to Russia to join the station partnership, which Russia accepted in December 1993.

There were both political and technical reasons for welcoming Russia into the station program. The Clinton administration saw station cooperation as a way of providing continuing employment for Russian space engineers who otherwise might have been willing to work on improving the military capabilities of countries hostile to the United States. Cooperation provided a means to transfer funds into the struggling Soviet economy. It was also intended as a signal of support by the White House for the administration of President Boris Yeltsin.

In addition, Russia brought extensive experience in long-duration space flight to the ISS program and agreed to contribute key hardware elements to the redesigned space station. The U.S. hope was that the Russian hardware contributions would accelerate the schedule for the ISS, while also lowering total program costs.

Planned Russian contributions to the ISS program include a U.S. funded propulsion and storage module, known as the Functional Cargo Block, built by the Russian firm Energia under contract to the U.S. company Boeing. Russia agreed to pay for a core control and habitation unit, known as the service module; Soyuz crew transfer capsules to serve as emergency escape vehicles docked to the ISS; unmanned Progress vehicles to carry supplies to the ISS; two Russian research laboratories; and a power platform to supply power to these laboratories.

The Functional Cargo Block (called Zarya ) was launched in November 1998, and Russia continued to provide a number of Soyuz and Progress vehicles to the ISS program. However, Russia's economic problems delayed work on the service module (called Zvezda ), and it was not launched until July 2000, two years behind schedule. As of January 2002, it was unclear whether Russia would actually be able to fund the construction of its two promised science laboratories and the associated power platform.

With the launch of Zvezda, the ISS was ready for permanent occupancy, and a three-person crew with a U.S. astronaut as commander and two Russian cosmonauts began a 4.5 month stay aboard in November 2000. Subsequent three-person crews are rotating between a Russian and a U.S. commander, with the other two crew members being from the other country. The crew size aboard ISS is planned to grow to six or seven after the European and Japanese laboratory contributions are attached to ISS sometime after 2005.

The sixteen-nation partnership in the ISS is the largest ever experiment in technological cooperation and provided a way for Russia to maintain its involvement in human space flight, which dates back to 1961, the year of the first person in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

See also: mir space station, space program

bibliography

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2002). "International Space Station." http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station.

Progressive Management. (2001). "2001—The International Space Station Odyssey Begins: The Complete Guide to the ISS with NASA and Russian Space Agency Documents." CD-ROM. Mount Laurel, New Jersey: Progressive Management.

John M. Logsdon