The largest international construction project in history began not with a hammer, but with a rocket launch on the Kazakh steppe. On 20 November 1998, the Russian-built, U.S.-funded Zarya Functional Cargo Block—Sunrise—thundered into orbit aboard a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Nine minutes later, Zarya unfurled its antennas and solar panels in the airless dark, becoming the first element of the International Space Station. Two weeks later, on 4 December 1998, Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying Unity, the first American-built module. Commander Robert Cabana, Pilot Frederick "Rick" Sturckow, and Mission Specialists Nancy Currie, Jerry Ross, James Newman, and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev rendezvoused with Zarya on 6 December. Using the shuttle’s robotic arm, they captured the Russian module and mated it with Unity—two elements designed by engineers thousands of miles apart, never joined on Earth, fitting perfectly in orbit. Over three spacewalks, Ross and Newman bolted umbilicals, connected cables, and stowed toolboxes for future crews. The embryonic station offered less than 200 cubic meters of pressurized volume and a fraction of the power that would one day course through its trusses, yet it represented the first foothold of a truly international outpost in the heavens.