The day following the spacewalks, Endeavour undocked from the two components, completing the first Space Station assembly mission. Once the two elements were docked, Ross and Newman conducted two scheduled spacewalks to connect power and data cables between the Node, PMAs and the FGB. Cabana completed the rendezvous by flying Endeavour to within 10 metres (33 ft) of the FGB, allowing Currie to capture the FGB with the robot arm and place it on the Node's Pressurized Mating Adapter. On the way, Currie used the Shuttle's robot arm to place Node 1 atop the Orbiter Docking System. To begin the assembly sequence, the crew conducted a series of rendezvous maneuvers similar to those conducted on other Shuttle missions to reach the orbiting FGB. Unity also contains an International Standard Payload Rack used to support on-orbit activities, which was activated after the fifth Shuttle/Station assembly flight. One PMA (PMA-1) is permanently mated to Zarya, and the other (PMA-2) is used for orbiter dockings and crew access to the station.
It has two Pressurized Mating Adapters (PMA), one attached to either end. Node 1, named Unity, was the first space station hardware delivered by the Space Shuttle. Illustration of the International Space Station after STS-88. Mission highlights STS-88 launches from Kennedy Space Center, 4 December 1998. Other payloads on the STS-88 mission included the IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC), the Argentine Scientific Applications Satellite-S (SAC-A), the MightySat 1 Hitchhiker payload, the Space Experiment Module (SEM-07) and Getaway Special G-093 sponsored by the University of Michigan. Zarya, built by Boeing and the Russian Space Agency, was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in November 1998. The seven-day mission was highlighted by the mating of the U.S.-built Unity node to the Functional Cargo Block ( Zarya module) already in orbit, and three spacewalks to connect power and data transmission cables between the Node and the FGB. It was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour, and took the first American module, the Unity node, to the station. STS-88 was the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS).