The Russian Space Agency is scheduled on Friday to launch Zarya, the control module for the football-field-sized International Space Station.
Zarya -- the Russian word for sunrise -- is the first component of the space station. By 2004, it will include separate US, Japanese, and European laboratories, as well as two Russian research modules and a Canadian robotic arm.
The station will orbit 250 miles above the earth and is scheduled to receive its first residents in January 2000.
NASA TV will broadcast the launch of the 180-foot-long Russian Proton rocket that will blast off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:40 a.m.
The space station is being financed and built by the 11 member nations of the European Space Agency, Canada, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Italy and Brazil are also contributing.
"This will begin a new era of exploration for the 16 nations to band together in space to improve life on Earth and expand the reach of the human race," NASA said in a statement. "The station will pave the way for the future human exploration of deep space."
The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to carry the second component into space on 3 December: Unity will provide a connecting passageway to the space station. Living quarters, an exterior frame, and an acre of solar arrays will be added in 1999.
Future NASA elements, to be added over the next four years, include two connecting modules, a laboratory, four solar arrays, another habitation module, and three mating adapters, as well as a thermal control, life support, guidance, navigation, control, data handling, and power systems.
