Title: 1999 - Discovery Spacecraft Docks with ISS

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About: In a great feat of technical engineering, the crew aboard space shuttle Discovery becomes the first to dock with the International Space Station.

 

The International Space Station is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. But at the time, the station consisted of only two bare modules, called Zarya and Unity.

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On the 29 May 1999, 385 kilometres above the border of Russia and Kazakstan, the space shuttle Discovery successfully linked up with the space station, and stayed connected for the next six days.

 

One of major tasks of Discovery’s crew was to transfer more than 1.5 tons of equipment to the inside of ISS. The seven astronauts unloaded spare parts, computers, tools, water and clothes for the station's first permanent inhabitants, who were scheduled to move in the next year..

 

Additionally, shuttle astronauts undertook what was then the second-longest spacewalk ever performed. While outside for seven hours and 55 minutes, Tamara Jernigan and Daniel Barry attached two cranes to the station and put out foot restraints for future astronauts to secure themselves during spacewalks.

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Decade: 1990s

Year: 1999

Region: Space

Country: USA

Discovery: Exploration

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Type: Historical Event

Impact: 2

Artist: Bryan Willian

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Group: Genesis

Number: 99/100

Price: 0.2 ETH

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