Expedition 1 was the first long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The three-person crew stayed aboard the station for 136 days, from 2 November 2000 to 19 March 2001. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the station which continues as of 2026.
The official start of the expedition occurred when the crew docked to the station on 2 November 2000, aboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-31, which had launched on 31 October 2000 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. During their mission, the Expedition 1 crew activated various systems on board the station, unpacked equipment that had been delivered, and hosted three visiting Space Shuttle crews and two uncrewed Russian Progress resupply vehicles. The crew was very busy throughout the mission, which was declared a success.
The three visiting Space Shuttles brought equipment, supplies, and key components of the space station. The first of these, STS-97, docked in early December 2000, and brought the first pair of large U.S. photovoltaic arrays, which increased the station's power capabilities fivefold. The second visiting shuttle mission was STS-98, which was docked in mid-February 2001 and delivered the US$1.4 billion research module Destiny, which increased the mass of the station beyond that of Mir for the first time. Mid-March 2001 saw the final shuttle visit of the expedition, STS-102, whose main purpose was to exchange the Expedition 1 crew with the next three-person long-duration crew, Expedition 2. The expedition ended when Discovery undocked from the station on 18 March 2001.
The Expedition 1 crew consisted of an American commander and two Russians. The commander, Bill Shepherd, had been in space three times before, all on shuttle missions which lasted at most a week. The Russians, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev, both had previous long-duration spaceflights on Mir, with Krikalev having spent over a year in space.
Crew
The commander, Bill Shepherd, was a former Navy SEAL, whose only spaceflights were on shuttle missions, and at the beginning of the mission his total time in space was about two weeks. Questions had been raised by the Russian space agency about the choice of Shepherd as mission commander due to his lack of experience. Flight engineer Sergei Krikalev had spent over a year in orbit, mostly on Mir, and would become the first person to visit the ISS twice. He had felt excitement to have been one of the first people to enter the Zarya module (the first component of the space station) in 1998, during STS-88, and was looking forward to returning. Yuri Gidzenko was designated commander and pilot of the two-day Soyuz mission to the station, had one previous spaceflight, which was a 180-day stay aboard Mir.
Shepherd was only the second U.S. astronaut to be launched in a Russian spacecraft, the first being Norman Thagard, who launched on Soyuz TM-21 to visit Mir in 1995. Shepherd expected one of the biggest challenges for the ISS would be the compatibility of technologies between Russian and U.S.
Background
The first component of the International Space Station was the Zarya module, which was launched uncrewed on 20 November 1998. Between this launch and the arrival of the first crew, five crewed Space Shuttle missions from the U.S. and two uncrewed Russian flights expanded the station and prepared it for human habitation.
Four of the five Shuttle flights focused primarily on delivering and unpacking substantial cargo for future crews. STS-88 launched on 4 December 1998, delivered the Unity module, the first component of the US Orbital Segment (USOS) during the mission, the crew spent several hours unpacking and setting up both Unity and Zarya. Krikalev, who would be a Flight Engineer on Expedition 1 flew on STS-88 and together with Shuttle Commander Robert D. Cabana became the first two people to jointly enter Unity and later Zarya.
STS-96, in May 1999, delivered 1,618 kilograms (3,567 lb) of pressurized cargo, 320 liters (84 U.S. gal) of water, and 300 kilograms (662 lb) of unpressurized cargo that was attached during a nearly eight hour EVA. Space Shuttle Atlantis visited the station during the STS-101 mission in May 2000. It delivered another 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) of pressurized cargo, and performed station maintenance. Near the end of the mission, they used Atlantis's thrusters to boost the ISS by 42 kilometres (26 mi) into a 380 kilometres (236 mi) orbit. Three of STS-101’s crew members — Yury V. Usachev, James S. Voss and Susan J. Helms — would visit the station the following year as the crew of Expedition 2.
The Zvezda module, the crew's living quarters, launched on 12 July 2000 and autonomously docked on the 26th. It was followed by the unmanned Progress M1-3 cargo spacecraft which docked on 8 August. STS-106, in September 2000, connected Zvezda to Zarya, delivered 2,700 kilograms (6,000 lb) of cargo including 140 kilograms (300 lb) of water, a vacuum cleaner, office supplies, and all of the food for the Expedition 1 crew. In total, the crew spent nearly five and a half days inside the station unloading both the Shuttle and the Progress and setting everything up for the Expedition 1 crew.
While not necessary to the mission of Expedition 1, the Space Shuttle did conduct one additional flight before the crew's arrival, STS-92 in October 2000, which delivered and installed the first piece of the Integrated Truss Structure along with an additional Pressurized Mating Adapter. This mission would enable future expansion of the USOS.
Prior to Expedition 1, Krikalev expected the ISS to be very similar to his experience on Mir ten years previous, due to the physical similarities of the stations' components.
The launch of the Expedition 1 crew occurred a week before the United States presidential election, so it got little attention in the United States. At the time of the mission, the station was expected to be completed in 2006, and be continuously inhabited until at least 2015. Due to several delays, including the fallout from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the station was not completed until 2021, with the arrival of the Nauka laboratory.
Mission highlights
The crew of three were on board the International Space Station for four and a half months, from early November 2000 to mid-March 2001. Major events during this time include the three-week-long Space Shuttle visits, which occurred in early December, mid-February, and at the end of the expedition in March.
Launch and docking
The three-member Expedition 1 crew successfully launched on 31 October 2000, at 07:52 UTC, atop a Soyuz-U rocket on Soyuz TM-31 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan; they used launch pad Gagarin's Start, from which the first human to fly in space, Yuri Gagarin, was launched in 1961. After 33 orbits of the Earth, and a series of rendezvous maneuvers performed by Gidzenko, they docked the Soyuz capsule to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module on 2 November 2000, at 09:21 UTC. Ninety minutes after docking, Shepherd opened the hatch to Zvezda and the crew members entered the complex.
Alpha
At the end of the first day on the station, Shepherd requested the use of the radio call sign "Alpha", which he and Krikalev preferred to the more cumbersome "International Space Station". The name "Alpha" had previously been used for the station in the early 1990s, and following the request, its use was authorized for the whole of Expedition 1. Shepherd had been advocating the use of a new name to project managers for some time. Referencing a naval tradition in a pre-launch news conference he had said: "For thousands of years, humans have been going to sea in ships. People have designed and built these vessels, launched them with a good feeling that a name will bring good fortune to the crew and success to their voyage." Yuriy Semenov, the President of Russian Space Corporation Energia at the time, disapproved of the name "Alpha"; he felt that Mir was the first space station, and so he would have preferred the names "Beta" or "Mir 2" for the ISS.
First month
In their first weeks on board, the Expedition 1 crew members activated critical life support systems and computer control, as well as unpacked supplies left behind for them by previous supply missions. At this time the station did not have enough electricity to heat all three pressurized modules, so Unity was left unused and unheated. Unity had been used for the past two years to allow U.S. flight controllers to command ISS systems and read station system data.
The Russian uncrewed resupply spacecraft Progress M1-4 docked to the station on 18 November. The Progress spacecraft's automatic docking system failed, necessitating a manual docking controlled by Gidzenko using the TORU docking system. Although manual dockings are routine, they have caused some concern among flight controllers since an attempt in 1997 which resulted in the spacecraft colliding with Mir, causing significant damage.
The astronauts had a heavy workload in the first month, as Shepherd told reporters in a space-to-ground interview: "To me, the biggest challenge is trying to pack 30 hours into an 18-hour work day." Some of the early tasks took longer than scheduled. For example, the activation of a food warmer in Zvezda's galley was scheduled for 30 minutes, but it took the astronauts a day and a half to turn it on.
STS-97
Endeavour docked with the ISS on 2 December 2000, on mission STS-97, bringing four more Americans and a Canadian temporarily to the station. The shuttle also brought the first pair of U.S. provided photovoltaic arrays, which would provide crucial electricity for further development of the station. In total, STS-97 brought 17 tons of equipment to the ISS, which also included expandable metal girders, batteries, electronics and cooling equipment.
Three spacewalks were conducted by the crew of STS-97, all of which were completed prior to opening the hatch between shuttle and station. On 8 December, the hatch between the two was opened and the two crews greeted each other for the first time. It had remained closed to maintain their respective atmospheric pressures. The Expedition 1 crew took this opportunity to leave the station and tour the inside of the space shuttle, which was thought to be good for their psychological well-being.
Progress M1-4
Prior to Endeavour docking, the Russian resupply spacecraft Progress M1-4, which came to the station in mid-November, was undocked to make room for the space shuttle. This Progress spacecraft remained undocked for the duration of STS-97, parked in orbit about 2,500 kilometers behind the station. It docked manually again with the station on 26 December by Gidzenko, after Endeavour left. The automatic docking system for this Progress spacecraft had failed on the first docking in November. The crew spent much of the following week unloading the Progress spacecraft.
Christmas and New Year
On Christmas Day, the Expedition 1 crew were given the day off work. They opened presents delivered by Endeavour and the Progress supply ship. They also each took turns speaking to their families. In the following days they did several video downlinks, some with Russian TV stations. The crew had a quiet New Year. Citing a Naval tradition, for the New Year's entry of the station's log, Shepherd provided a poem on behalf of the crew.
STS-98
On 9 February 2001, Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the ISS, bringing the five American crew members of STS-98 temporarily to the station. The mission was originally planned for mid-January, but was delayed due to NASA's concerns about some cables on the shuttles. This mission brought the U.S. built Destiny laboratory, which has a mass of 16 short tons. It was installed with the use of the shuttle's robotic Canadarm, controlled by Marsha Ivins. Astronauts Thomas D. Jones and Robert L. Curbeam helped with the installation during a spacewalk. The Destiny module had a cost of US$1.4 billion, and would be used primarily for scientific research. During the spacewalk an ammonia coolant leak created a contamination scare, which happened when Curbeam was hooking up coolant lines to Destiny. The other two spacewalks went ahead without any problems. While the Shuttle was docked, the control of the station's orientation was switched from propellants to electrically powered gyroscopes, which had been installed in September 2000. The gyroscopes had not been used earlier due to the lack of key navigational electronics.
By the end of STS-98, the crew of Expedition 1 had been on the station for over three months, and Shepherd stated that he was "ready to come home". NASA used several techniques to prevent the three crew members from suffering the effects of the "three-month wall" psychological barrier, which had caused depression in previous astronauts. For example, they allowed more time for the crew to speak to their families via videophone, and they also encouraged them to watch movies and listen to music they like.
Progress M-44
On 28 February the third Progress spacecraft to visit the ISS, Progress M-44, docked to the Zvezda module. It brought air, food, rocket fuel and other equipment. It remained docked until Expedition 2, when it was intentionally burnt up during atmospheric reentry, like all Progress spacecraft.