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On This Day In Space: Dec. 6, 1998: International Space Station assembly begins

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On This Day In Space: Dec. 6, 1998: International Space Station assembly begins_6570e7f3aaad8.jpeg

On Dec. 6, 1998, astronauts on the  space shuttle Endeavour officially began the construction of the International Space Station. 

Mission STS-88 was the first shuttle mission to the space station. It brought along the first American component of the orbiting laboratory, an 18-foot-long module called the Unity Node, or Node 1.

Related: NASA wants more ‘space tug’ ideas to deorbit the International Space Station in a fiery finale

Space shuttle Endeavour launches from from Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 4, 1998 (left), and the U.S.-built Unity connecting module and the Russian-built Zarya module after assembly of the International Space Station begin (right). (Image credit: NASA)
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By the time the Unity node went to space, Russia’s first space station component, the Zarya module, had already been in orbit for a couple weeks. 

So the STS-88 crew brought Unity to Zarya and connected the two components in orbit.

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