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10 Years in Orbit

International Space Station has birthday

• AP/ITAR-TASS
• AP
• AP/NASA TV
• AP/NASA TV
• AP/NASA TV
• AP/NASA

• Nov. 18, 1998: The Russian booster rocket Proton, with the 24-ton Zarya (Sunrise) control and cargo module, the first component of a multibillion dollar international space station, atop, is placed on a launch pad at the Baikonur rocket base in Kazakstan.
• Nov. 20, 1998: The Russian booster rocket Proton takes off from the launch pad at the Baikonur rocket base in Kazakhstan. The 24-ton Zarya control and cargo module, designed to serve as a space tugboat in the early stages of the international space station project, providing propulsion, power and communications, was launched atop the booster rocket. NASA followed up two weeks later with piece No. 2 carried up by a space shuttle. Astronauts and cosmonauts moved in two years later, and the rest, as they say, is history.
• Dec. 6, 1998: The robot arm, right, of space shuttle Endeavour moves towards the Russian-built Zarya module as they orbit the Earth in an image from NASA television. The robot arm will capture the Zarya module, mating it with the American-built Unity module in the shuttle's payload bay.
• Dec. 6, 1998: The Russian-made Zarya module, top, and the American-made Unity are mated together in an image from NASA television. The modules were the first two units of the international space station.
• Dec. 6, 1998: The robot arm of the Endeavour moves away from the docked Unity (bottom) and Zarya modules (top, with solar panels) as the first orbital assembly of the International Space Station was completed in a view from television.
• Nov. 16: The International Space Station as it looks today, again seen from space shuttle Endeavour as it approached with parts to expand the ISS's living capacity from three to six full-time humans.

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