Kirsten Larson
NASA Headquarters, Washington             Sept. 14, 2001
(Phone: 202/358-0243)

Eileen Hawley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N01-49

NASA TV TO COVER NEW SPACE STATION DOCKING MODULE

     The newest component of the International Space Station, 
a Russian Docking Compartment known as Pirs, meaning pier or 
port, is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting outpost Sunday, 
Sept. 16. 

Coverage and commentary of this event will be broadcast live 
on NASA Television, beginning at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

The Docking Compartment will serve both as a new docking port 
for future Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles arriving at 
the space station and as a second airlock, enabling 
spacewalks to be conducted from the Russian segment of the 
station. The first airlock, known as Quest, was installed in 
July.

Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir 
Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin will conduct 
spacewalks from Pirs in October to complete outfitting and to 
activate systems for future activity.

Pirs will be secured to the Zvezda Service Module shortly 
after 9:00 p.m. Its arrival will complete a two-day 
rendezvous with the space station that begins with its 
scheduled launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan 
Friday, Sept.14. NASA TV will not broadcast coverage of the 
launch.

NASA Television is available on GE-2, Transponder 9C at 85 
degrees West longitude, vertical polarization, with a 
frequency of 3880 MHz, and audio of 6.8 MHz. Additional 
information on the Internet is available at:
            http://spaceflight.nasa.gov
                        -end-