Universe Today - September 18, 2001

Launched on board a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome, the Pirs Docking Compartment arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday evening. Pirs will provide an additional docking point for Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, as well as a staging area for spacewalks on the Russian areas of the station. This 5-metre compartment becomes the sixth pressurized module to make up the station.

Space Imaging has released a second photograph of the devastation at the World Trade Center taken by its IKONOS satellite. In the previous image, taken the same day of the collapse, much of the area was shrouded in thick smoke. This new image, taken three days after, clearly shows the massive amount of rubble facing rescue workers searching for survivors. IKONOS is the world's first high-resolution commercial Earth imaging satellite, capable of producing 1-metre resolution images.