21 years ago, October 31, 2000, the piloted ship “Union TM-31” went to the International Space Station. The first crew of the ISS included astronauts Yuri Gyzenko, Sergey Krikalev and Astronaut William Shepard (he became the commander of the first expedition to the ISS).
November 2, the ship died to the ISS. It is from this date that the station is considered to be inhabited, and 66 international crews visited it on board. After 90 minutes, the hatch was opened, and the crew first stepped on board the station. And after – a decomposition, retrofit, start and configuring the “Star” modules, “Zarya” and “Uniti” modules, setting a connection with flight control centers in Moscow Korolev and Houston and still dozens of research and experiments!
On June 17, 1992, a cooperation agreement was concluded between Russia and the United States aimed at researching space. In view of this, the Russian Space Agency, together with NASA, developed the program “Peace – Shuttle”, which provided flights of reusable American ships “Space Shuttle” to the Russian Space Station “Peace”. The program also regulated the inclusion of cosmonauts from Russia to the crews of American “shuttles” and, accordingly, the US astronauts in the crews of Russian Soyuz ships and the Mir station. As part of the implementation of this program, an idea arose to unite national programs for creating orbital stations.
On September 2, 1993, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia Viktor Chernomyrdin and Vice-President of the United States Albert Mountain was still announced the creation of a new project “of a truly international space station”. Then the “International Space Station” was the official name, although, along with it, the unofficial – Space Station “Alpha” was used. The Russian Space Agency and NASA have developed a “detailed work plan for the International Space Station.” This allowed in June 1994 to sign a contract between “On the supply and services for the Mir station” and the International Space Station. “
In March 1995, a draft station in the Space Center was approved. Johnson in Houston, and in 1996 approved the configuration of a station consisting of two segments – the Russian (advanced version of “Mir-2”) and American (with the participation of ESA countries, Italy, Canada, Japan and Brazil). The construction of the first station modules begins. On January 29, 1998, representatives of Russia, USA, Member States of the European Space Agency, Canada and Japan sign an agreement on the creation of an ISS in Washington. The document was the result of the five-year preliminary work of space departments of different countries, and the date is the point of reference in the history of the ISS.