STATEMENT FOLLOWING CONCLUSION OF MOSCOW MEETINGS



October 2, 1998



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



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

<h4>Release: H98-176</h4> <h3>Statement Following Conclusion of Moscow 
Meetings</h3> 

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.

	
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