ISS crew successfully prepares the Russian Segment preparation for its outfitting with a new module

The International Space Station crew successfully accomplished the
operation of the Russian Segment (RS) preparation for its outfitting
with a new module, i.e. Docking Compartment (DC 1) Pirs, which was manufactured
at RSC Energia, prime contractor of ISS RS, and is passing integrated
tests before shipment to Baikonur. The compartment is scheduled to be
delivered to the ISS in the second half of 2001 as part of the Progress
M-CO1 cargo vehicle.

Following the Module Zvezda transfer compartment hatches closing and
airlocking the crew commander Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and flight
engineer James Voss performed an egress into space and replaced the
spherical cover of the nadir docking assembly with the cone cover. The
cover replacement lasted from 18:21 to 19:07 Moscow summer time. The
flight engineer U.S. astronaut Susan Helms stayed in the module Zarya
and was tracking the work progress per the flight-data files.

The operation performance was under control of the Lead Operational
Control Team (LOCT) of MCC-M (Korolev) headed by V.A. Soloviev, Flight
Director.

Leading specialists of RSC Energia, developers and manufacturers of
the ISS RS systems and assemblies were present in the MCC-M control
room. According to LOCT, the International Space Station is in an orbit
with maximum and minimum altitudes of 410.2 and 373.1 km, respectively.
The orbital period is 92.1 minutes.