July 18, 2000



Zarya and Zvezda docking scheduled for July 25 / 26.



By Miles Mann WF1F,

MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)



The third module of the ISS was successfully launched on July 12 from

the Baikonur Cosomodrome in Kazakhstan.  The Zvezda module is currently

flying in orbit, slowly closing in on the two existing modules of the

ISS.  After this module successfully docks, there will be a sufficient

number of ISS modules to allow a full time crew to move in, later this

November.  The service module is now called Zvezda (Star in Russian). 

This module is of great interest to the Amateur Radio community because

it is the module with the four (4) antenna port feed-through

connections.  (No antennas connected at this time) And this is the

module where most of the Amateur Radio equipment will be located.