11.   Its addition will permit yet another shuttle crew to add the American science module to the orbital outpost in January.

12.   Its crew will retrieve Andy Thomas, the seventh and final American astronaut assigned by NASA to live and work aboard the orbital outpost.

13.   She will join Mir commander Yuri Onufrienko and flight engineer Yuri Usachev aboard the orbital outpost.

14.   Shuttle passengers Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin will remain aboard the orbital outpost.

15.   Space station engineers are also interested in the potential uses of tethers to periodically reboost the orbital outpost as it succumbs to atmospheric drag.

16.   The activities will prepare the orbital outpost for the arrival of the Russian crew module in July and the first resident crew of astronauts and cosmonauts late this year.

17.   The Atlantis astronauts gave the international space station a final nudge to a higher altitude on Thursday and prepared to depart the rejuvenated orbital outpost.

18.   The Atlantis crew plans to replace failing batteris aboard the first components of the new orbital outpost and repair the U.S. communications system.

19.   The boosting set the orbital outpost up for the launching of its first resident American and Russian crew.

20.   The first American and Russian crew assigned to live aboard the international space station sped toward a rendezvous with the orbital outpost, following a flawless liftoff early Tuesday.