Reusable US Orbiter Endeavor, upon completion of its mission that had
as its main objective the re-supply of the International Space Station
and replacing the third expedition crew ISS-3, landed on December 17,
2001, at 20:58 Moscow Time, at Kennedy Space Center (USA). ISS-3 crew
consisting of commander Frank Culbertson (USA), pilot Vladimir Dezhurov,
and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin (Russia) returned to Earth after
125 days of work on-board the space station.

The mission had designation of UF-1 under the space station program
(or STS-108 under the Space Shuttle program).

The Orbiter undocked from the international space station on December
15, 2001, at 20:28 Moscow Time and continued its free-flight mission
program.

During the eight days of the joint flight of the Station and the Orbiter,
their crews completed all the activities that had been planned under
ISS program. The third expedition crew ISS-3 handed over to Expedition
Four crew (ISS-4) which consists of commander Yuri Onufrienko (Russia),
flight engineers Carl Walz and Daniel Bursch (USA).

Cargoes delivered by the Orbiter were stowed on ISS, and cargoes to
be returned to Earth were stowed on-board the Orbiter. In the course
of the joint flight of the Orbiter and the Station, the work on installing
thermal protection blankets for solar array actuators was performed
on the US segment. Four ISS orbital correction maneuvers were performed
using the Orbiter thrusters. The crews held three press conferences
with specialists and news reporters, including a press conference on
December 11 for the Russian media. The cosmonauts talked about the work
they completed and were planning to complete on-board the space station
and answered the reporters’ questions.

International Space Station (ISS) with a mass of 137 tons now consists
of the Functional Cargo Module (FGB) Zarya, Service Module Zvezda, Docking
Compartment Pirs, manned spacecraft Soyuz TM-33, cargo vehicle Progress
M1-7, as well as modules Unity, Destiny, and airlock Quest. On-board
systems of the Space Station operate within design limits.

Based on the data from the Lead Operations Control Team (Flight Director
is cosmonaut V.A.Soloviev) the space station flies in an orbit with
the following parameters: inclination 51.6° maximum and minimum flight
altitude is 407.4 and 386.1 km, respectively. The orbital period of
the space station is 92.2 minutes.