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ALMOST THERE... Below is a montage of photos showing the progress being made as the International Space Station continues to grow in size each year (till 2010, that is...when construction on the outpost should be completed and the space shuttle fleet is retired). The first one depicts the ISS as it looked when the first two segments, the Russian-made Zarya module and the U.S.-made Unity node, were linked up almost 9 years ago. The second photo depicts the outpost as it looked for about 4 years while the shuttle was grounded following the February 2003 Columbia disaster (the last flight to the station before the tragedy occurred, STS-113, was launched in November of 2002, and the ISS started to change in appearance after the STS-115 flight in September of last year). The third photo was taken this morning...in the moments following Discovery's undocking from the space station after successfully completing all of its objectives for STS-120. The next addition to the ISS should be Europe’s Columbus science module...which will launch to the station onboard Atlantis in STS-122 next month.


NASA