NASA COMMEMORATES 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF DOCKING OF FIRST TWO ISS MODULES, Dec 6, 2023, virtual, 12:25 pm ET (NASA TV)

NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana and ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano will talk with astronauts aboard the International Space Station on December 6, 2023 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the docking of the first two ISS modules, Zarya and Unity (then known as Node 1).

The conversation will begin at 12:25 pm ET. Watch on the NASA+ streaming service or live on NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Cabana is a former astronaut and commanded the space shuttle mission, STS-88, that delivered Unity. STS-88 launched on December 4, 1998.

A number of dates are used as ISS milestones.

• November 2. The arrival of the first space station crew — Russians Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev and NASA’s Bill Shepherd — on November 2, 2000 that begin the era of permanent occupancy. The ISS partners just celebrated that 23rd anniversary.
• November 20. The launch of  Zarya on November 20, 1998. They just celebrated that 25th anniversary.
• December 6. The docking of Zarya and Unity and Cabana becoming the first astronaut to enter the nascent station on December 6, 1998. Krikalev also was on this crew along with four other NASA astronauts. That’s the 25th anniversary that will be celebrated during this event. (Krikalev is Russia’s most experienced cosmonaut and for many years has headed Russia’s human spaceflight program within Roscosmos.)

The year-and-a-half gap between STS-88 and the first space station crew was due largely to delays in Russia’s delivery of the third module, Zvezda, which was needed before a crew could live there without the space shuttle attached. Three U.S. space shuttle missions visited the space station during that time to begin outfitting it and to boost the orbit.