Заря: Первый модуль Международной космической станции

First module of the International Space Station

Zarya (Заря), also known as the Functional Cargo Block or FGB (from the "Функционально грузовой блок" or ФГБ), is the first module of the International Space Station to have been launched. The FGB provided electrical power, storage, propulsion, and guidance to the ISS during the initial stage of assembly. With the launch and assembly in orbit of other modules with more specialized functionality, as of 2021 it is primarily used for storage, both inside the pressurized section and in the externally mounted fuel tanks. The Zarya is a descendant of the TKS spacecraft designed for the Soviet Salyut program. The name Zarya ("Dawn") was given to the FGB because it signified the dawn of a new era of international cooperation in space. Although it was built by a Russian company, it is owned by the United States.

The Zarya design was originally intended as a module for the Russian Mir space station, but was not flown as of the end of the Mir program. A FGB cargo block was incorporated as an upper stage engine into the Polyus spacecraft, flown (unsuccessfully) on the first Energia launch. With the end of the Mir program, the design was adapted to use for the International Space Station. The Zarya module is capable of station keeping and provides sizable battery power; it was suggested to have initially been built to both power and control the recoil from a further derivation of the then classified Skif laser system/Polyus satellite. Commentators in the West thought that the Zarya module was constructed more cheaply and lifted to orbit faster than should have been possible in the post Soviet era, and that the FGB might have been largely constructed from mothballed hardware from the Skif laser program (which had been canceled after the failed 1987 Polyus launch). The research and development of a similar design was paid for by Russia and the Soviet Union; the design of the module and all systems are Soviet/Russian. The United States funded Zarya through the U. S. prime contracts in the 1990s as the first module for ISS, and it was built from December 1994 to January 1998 in Russia at the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center (KhSC) in Moscow.

Zarya was launched on 20 November 1998 on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 81 in Kazakhstan to a high orbit with a designed lifetime of at least 15 years. After Zarya reached orbit, STS 88 launched on 4 December 1998 to attach the Unity module. Although only designed to fly autonomously for six to eight months, Zarya was required to do so for almost two years due to delays to the Russian Service Module, Zvezda. Zvezda was finally launched on 12 July 2000, docking with Zarya on 26 July 2000. Zarya passed the 50,000 orbit mark at 15:17 UTC on 14 August 2007 during the STS 118 mission to the International Space Station.