Swales Aerospace's Starboard 0 Heat Pipe Radiator System is a thermal control mechanism designed to keep the International Space Station's electronics systems at cool temperatures. The radiator system is raised from a thermal vacuum chamber at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The radiator system consists of a 5 x 21-ft heat pipe radiator panel, 14 transfer tube heat pipes, and nine heat pipe equipment plates. It is designed to remove waste heat from electronic components on the station's S0 truss segment and expel the heat into space. The radiator system — claimed by the company to be the largest heat pipe panel ever fabricated — contains 53 embedded heat pipes in a two-tier arrangement.

Boeing will integrate the system into the station's S0 truss segment, which is located near the center of the station structure. The truss segments are the virtual "backbones" of the station, providing the foundation for subsystem hardware installation, utility distribution, power generation, heat rejection, and external payload accommodations. At time of press, Swales revealed that the S0 truss segment is scheduled for a June 2000 launch onboard STS-105.

Boeing's Huntington Beach team is developing and building the ISS's pre-integrated truss structure, pressurized mating adapters, node modules, and the mobile transporter, as well as performing cupola outfitting. The company also leads several teams in development of various systems such as communications and tracking; guidance, navigation, and control; command and data handling; and thermal control.

The International Space Station program represents a multinational effort to design, build, and place a manned space station in orbit around Earth. More than 40 flights will be flown to assemble the components in orbit.

The 42,000 lb module will house living quarters, life support system, electrical power distribution, data processing system, flight control system, and propulsion system. It also will provide a communications system that includes remote command capabilities from ground flight controllers.

The module features a solar array wingspan of 97.5 ft from tip to tip and measures 43 ft long from end to end. It contains three pressurized compartments; a small spherical transfer compartment at the forward end; the long, cylindrical main work compartment; and the small, cylindrical transfer chamber at the aft.

An unpressurized assembly compartment wrapped around the exterior of the transfer chamber at the aft holds external equipment such as propellant tanks, thrusters, and communications antennas.

The Service Module will include four docking ports — one in the aft Transfer Chamber and three in the spherical forward Transfer Compartment. The aft docking port has a probe and cone docking mechanism for Progress and Soyuz vehicles, while the forward docking ports will have a hybrid docking mechanism to allow docking with the FGB using the forward-facing port; the Russian Science Power Platform using the up-facing port; and the Russian Universal Docking Module using the down-facing port.

The next major ISS components scheduled to go up are the Integrated Truss Structure Z1, PMA-3, Ku-band communications system and control moment gyros. These are scheduled for launch onboard STS-92 in October 1999.