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:
