Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

MSNBC // Technology & Science // SPACE NEWS
Silent suspense surrounded birth of space station
Russians recall glitch that required fast thinking after 1998’s initial
launch
http://www.msnbc.com/news/996722.asp
By James Oberg, NBC NEWS SPACE ANALYST
Nov. 21 — Five years ago, when the very first section of the
international space station reached orbit, the entire program could have
teetered on the edge of failure. It was Nov. 20, 1998, and the project was
saved only through the last-minute intervention of some unsung Russian space
experts, who never told NASA how close they had come to disaster. Or at
least that’s the story told at the Russian space command center at
Krasnoznamensk, southwest of Moscow, where military personnel do the actual
communications with all 120 active Russian spacecraft.
From Krasnoznamensk, data are transmitted to the better-known
Mission Control Center in the northern Moscow suburb of Korolyov, where on
Nov. 20, 1998, foreign dignitaries and journalists were celebrating —
perhaps prematurely — the successful launch.