Space Station

This artist's concept depicts the Space Station Freedom as it would look orbiting the Earth, illustrated by Marshall Space Flight Center artist, Tom Buzbee. Scheduled to be completed in late 1999, this smaller configuration of the Space Station featured a horizontal truss structure that supported U.S., European, and Japanese Laboratory Modules; the U.S. Habitation Module; and three sets of solar arrays. The Space Station Freedom was an international, permanently marned, orbiting base to be assembled in orbit by a series of Space Shuttle missions that were to begin in the mid-1990's.