The first major
element of the International Space Station’s (ISS) enormous backbone
will bring more power supplies and data handling capabilities when
it is installed during the next space shuttle mission.

The Starboard 0 (S0) truss segment, will be delivered to the orbiting
outpost on STS 110 (ISS-8A) scheduled for launch on April 4, 2002
from Kennedy Space Center. Boeing Human Space Flight and Exploration
in Huntington Beach, Calif., built the truss and company operations
in Florida prepared it for launch. Human Space Flight and Exploration
is part of Boeing Space and Communications a business unit of The
Boeing Company [NYSE:BA] that is NASA’s prime contractor on the space
station.

Astronauts are scheduled to make four space walks during the nine-day
mission to install the truss.

"The S0 truss is the keystone of the station," said James
McCormick, Boeing launch package manager. "Like the center block
of a stone arch, this is the structural centerpiece of the station."

Future shuttle missions will carry five more hefty truss segments
that when fully assembled will span the length of a football field.
The S0 truss includes pre-installed rails for the Boeing-built mobile
transporter that will accommodate Canadarm2, the Canadian-built robotic
arm. The arm, currently attached to the Boeing-built U.S. laboratory,
Destiny, plays a major role in moving and positioning payloads from
the docked space shuttle and assembling the station’s structure, including
the solar arrays, radiators and experiments.

Power and data cables and the thermal control system that provides
heating and cooling wind through the 44-foot by 15-foot 27,000-pound
truss to carry energy and information to and from the station’s extremities
where solar panels collect electrical energy used to power experiments,
computers, life support systems and other services.

"The S0 truss
is the station’s central routing point," McCormick said. "Power,
data and thermal coolant are routed through the laboratories from
the truss elements. Also, power converters inside the outboard truss
elements reduce the solar panel voltage to levels useable by the station’s
electrical equipment."

Video cameras, attached to the structure, monitor assembly operations
and other activities on the station. Other instruments provide the
data that astronauts and ground controllers use to maintain the station’s
position and orient the solar panels.

Two more truss segments, Port 1 (P1) and Starboard 1 (S1), are scheduled
to be launched this year and will be attached to S0 by space walking
astronauts. Both were built and prepared for launch by Boeing Human
Space Flight and Exploration.

Boeing Space and Communications (S&C), headquartered in Seal Beach,
Calif., is the world’s largest space and communications company. A
unit of the Boeing Company, S&C provides integrated solutions
in launch services, human space flight and exploration, missile defense,
and information and communications. It is the primary systems integrator
for U.S. missile defense; and a leading provider of intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance. The global enterprise has customers
worldwide and manufacturing operations throughout the United States
and Australia.