Zarya

The Zarya Control Module is the first component of the ISS. Its launch on Nov. 20 1998 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, saw the start of a new international co-operation. The word “Zarya” means “dawn” and it was so named to mark the dawn of a new era of international co-operation in the matter of space exploration, instead of the intense competition especially in the 1960’s and 1970’s.



Zarya is also known by the technical term Functional Cargo Block (FGB). Its function was to provide initial orientation control, communications and electrical power for the early stages of the ISS, until the Zvezda component took over most of its duties.
Zarya remains alone for only about two weeks. On December 4, 1998, the second component of the ISS, the Unity Node, was launched using the Space Shuttle Endeavour and it joined Zarya on December 7, 1998. Although Zarya was initially scheduled to carry out its initial functions for only six to eight months, the delay of the third ISS component (Zvezda) which was supposed to take over its functions meant that Zarya had to carry the guidance, communications and electrical supply duties for the ISS for almost two years before Zvezda finally docked with the ISS on July 26, 2006 and took over the functions.





Zarya derives its power from two solar arrays (СБ, SB), each 28 m² (7 m long and 4 m wide) and covered on one side with glass-coated photoelectric converters; these were unfurled upon reaching orbit. The cells absorb 90% of sunlight on the side facing the sun, and 10% of reflected sunlight from Earth on their reverse sides. Power was transferred to 6 batteries in the power supply system (SES, СЭС) which, in the initial stages, supplied power to the FGB and Unity. Later after the arrival of Zvezda, Zarya converted power from the U.S. segment (124 V dc) for use in the Russian segment (28 V dc).





Recently, on August 14, 2007, Zarya made its 50,000 th orbit since it was first launched. However, today, Zarya’s critical functions has long passed, and it serves mostly as a storage module and as the “halfway house” between the all-Russian segments of the station, and the wholly NASA-built segment.