Today in Oviedo, Spain, the International Space Station will be honoured
with the 2001 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. The
Director General of the European Space Agency, Antonio Rodot, and
representatives of the other ISS partner space agencies, from the United
States, Russia, Canada and Japan, will receive the award from HRH the
Prince of Asturias.

The Prince of Asturias Foundation granted this Award in recognition of the
efforts made “to achieve international cooperation that have been
necessary to turn this enormous orbiting laboratory for scientific
research for a greater understanding of our planet into a reality”.

HRH the Prince of Asturias will also congratulate the six astronauts now
on board the Space Station during a satellite link starting at 15:00 CEST
(13:00 GMT) today. The astronauts include a crew of one American and two
Russians who have been on board since August and another crew of two
Russians and one French who are halfway through an eight-day mission.

Europe, the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada are undertaking the
biggest international space project of all time. Once completed, the
450-tonne Space Station will be a world-class research centre providing a
platform for advances in science and technology 400 km above the Earth.
Its assembly in orbit began in 1998 and successive crews of astronauts
from various countries have been living and working on board since
November 2000.

The Prince of Asturias Foundation, whose Honorary President is HRH the
Prince of Asturias, is a non-profit institution whose aims are to
consolidate the ties between the the Principality of Asturias and its
Prince and to promote science, technology, art and literature.

The Award for International Cooperation is given “to an individual, group
or institution whose work has contributed in an exemplary and significant
way to mutual understanding, progress and brotherhood among nations”.
Previous winners have included Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, Itzhak
Rabin and Yasser Arafat, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Note to editors:

This event will be broadcast live on the Spanish network TVE and the
images will be freely available to all broadcasters via TVE (pool
arrangement). The images from the ISS will also be available via NASA TV.
The ESA TV Service will transmit them to Europe. For satellite details,
see http://television.esa.int.

For further information, please contact:

Prince of Asturias Foundation

Felipe Escudero

Press Office

Tel: +34.985.2587.55

Fax: +34.985.242.104

www.fpa.es

European Space Agency

Simonetta Cheli

Head of Public and Institutional Relations Office

ESA/ESRIN

Tel: +39.06.941.803.50

Fax: +39.06.941.803.52

www.esa.int