OTD in Space - Nov 2: 1st Crew Arrives at the International Space Station

On November 2, 2000, the International Space Station welcomed its first long-term residents: NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. The mission was called Expedition 1. Before this expedition, NASA had launched five, one-week-long Space Shuttle missions to help build the space station and bring up supplies. But this time, the crew would be staying for four and a half months, and they weren’t taking the shuttle. Instead, they took a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and this was the first Soyuz to ever dock at the space station. During their stay at the space station, they unpacked supplies and installed new equipment, including the first solar arrays. They left on the space shuttle Discovery, which brought up the Expedition 2 crew that would take their place.