Zvezda (ISS Module)

Zvezda, also called the Zvezda Service Module, is a module of the International Space Station and was the third module launched to it. It provides all of the station's life support systems, some supplemented in the United States segment, and living quarters for two crew members, and it is the structural and functional center of the Russian Orbital Segment. The module was manufactured in the USSR by Energia, with major sub-contracting work by Khrunichev. Its hull, known as DOS-8, was first built in the mid-1980s as the structural spare of the Mir core module and was later reconfigured as the core of the planned Mir-2 station, before the Mir-2 project merged with Space Station Freedom to become the International Space Station. Zvezda was launched on a Proton rocket on 12 July 2000 and docked with the Zarya module on 26 July 2000. It weighs about 19,050 kilograms, is 13.1 metres long, and its solar panels extend 29.7 metres.