NASA ACCEPTS
"KEYS" TO FIRST U.S.-BUILT STATION COMPONENT
The Unity connecting
module, the first U.S.-built component
of the International Space Station, moved
a step closer to orbit
this week when Boeing, the manufacturer of
Unity, officially
handed over the module's "keys" to NASA.
NASA officially
accepted the module after review and
certification of Unity's construction by
NASA and Boeing station
managers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center,
FL. Unity is scheduled
for launch aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour
on the STS-88 mission on
Dec. 3. Unity will be launched two weeks
after the first station
component, the U.S.-funded, Russian-built
Zarya module, is launched
from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan.
Unity will be mated to
Zarya by Endeavour's astronauts to begin
the five-year orbital
assembly of the International Space Station.
Unity is a critical
component of the International Space
Station, a six-sided connector with a berthing
port on each side.
Along with Unity at Kennedy, more than a
half-dozen major pieces
of U.S. and foreign-built hardware are now
being prepared for
launch.
"It is not by chance
that we named this module Unity,"
International Space Station program manager
Randy Brinkley said
following the review. "The name certainly
represents all of the
hard work by the Boeing teams and the NASA
teams, as well as the
worldwide space station team. The Unity
module has been a great
joint effort."
Unity was manufactured by Boeing at
NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. It
was transported from Alabama
to Florida in June 1997, where final assembly
and launch
preparations began. Attached to Unity
for launch are two conical
mating adapters, also built by Boeing and
officially accepted by
NASA this week.
As the Unity acceptance
review board completed its official
work, Royce Mitchell, Boeing's ISS deputy
program manager, handed
his NASA counterparts plaques bearing a replica
of a tool used to
open the hatches on Unity and a symbolic
"key" to the module.
The International
Space Station draws upon the resources and
expertise of 16 nations and is the largest
and most complex
international scientific project ever undertaken.
Five
international partnersÑ the United States;
Canada; member states
of the European Space Agency; Japan and Russia;
as well as Brazil
and Italy as participants through the United
StatesÑare working
together in a joint endeavor to explore space
for the benefit of
all humankind.
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