The much-delayed Russian-built Zvezda service module finally may reach the International Space Station (ISS) in a few weeks. Following a General Designer’s Review meeting in Moscow June 26, NASA and the Russian Space Agency announced that launch plans remain on-track for Zvezda to reach its home.

A definitive lift-off time will be announced as the launch date nears, but launch officials at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan are analyzing trajectory patterns and deciding when lighting conditions for docking to the ISS will be optimal. The module will be carried into orbit by a Proton rocket.

“All the queries that emerged during the tests have been ironed out,” said Valery Riumin, director of the Russian side of the ISS program and vice president of RSC Energia.

The module contains three pressurized compartments and four docking ports. It measures 43 feet (13 meters) long and has a solar array wingspan of 97.5 feet (30 meters). It will provide the early living quarters for astronauts and cosmonauts and contains the systems for life support, electrical power distribution, data processing, flight control and propulsion.

Following Zvezda’s launch and 14 days of free flight, the ISS will rendezvous and dock with its newest module using an automatic docking system, propellant and thrusters in the Zarya control module.

With the news that Zvezda will finally reach orbit, the departure of the first U.S.-Russian crew to live on ISS is scheduled for Oct. 30. American Commander William Sheperd and Russians Yury Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov will be launched on a Soyuz rocket.

The next several components of ISS are also on track to meet their launch dates and include a small truss segment that will serve as the support structure for other station hardware, the first set of solar arrays, the United States Destiny Laboratory, the Canadian-built robot arm and several truss segments that will serve as the station’s backbone for external hardware, experiments and solar arrays.