`Zvezda' station is ready for astronauts

The International Space Station, now in orbit 230 miles over the earth, is finally open for business. It is two years late, £2,000 million over budget but is ready to receive its first guests, a team of astronauts who will move into the station this November. The unmanned Zvezda service module was blasted into orbit two weeks ago from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan and, fearful of mishaps, its controllers took great care manoeuvring it into position. Zvezda finally docked yesterday with the two already orbiting but otherwise useless station modules just after midnight Irish time.

The three modules together form the minimum required for safe human habitation and exultant space officials described the docking as opening up a "new era in space". This is just the beginning of a £40,000 million project involving 16 nations with the goal to create an enormous, permanently occupied international space station.

This was an important success for the US National Aeronauatics and Space Administration, still smarting from two high profile failed missions to Mars. The docking was far more significant to the struggling Russian space programme, however, which had overall control of this piece of the station.