October 2, 1998

Dwayne C. Brown
Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone: 202/358-1726)

James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center, Houston,TX
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

Release: H98-176

Statement Following Conclusion of Moscow Meetings

The launches of the first International Space Station components -- the Zarya module and the Unity module -- remain on schedule following a series of technical meetings in Moscow that concluded today with a meeting of representatives from all international partners.

In today's meeting, all station partners reviewed and concurred with a plan to maintain the current launch schedule for Zarya, which will launch on a Russian Proton booster Nov. 20 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, and for Unity, which will launch on the Space Shuttle Endeavour Dec. 3 from the Kennedy Space Center, FL.

The international partner representatives, members of the International Space Station Control Board, also reviewed plans for launch of the Russian-provided Service Module, the station's early living quarters, and confirmed its launch delay to July 1999. The international partners will reconvene in December at Kennedy, in conjunction with the launch of Unity, to further refine the station's assembly sequence.

NASA and the Russian Space Agency (RSA) also reached an agreement under which NASA could purchase services and hardware from RSA for $60 million (U.S.). The agreement could be implemented through an existing contract between NASA and RSA upon concurrence from Congress. Payment of the $60 million will be tied to confirmation of RSA's completion of milestones necessary to ensure the completion of critical early assembly activities related to the final integration and launch of the Service Module and initial Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.

text-only version of this release