The official start of the expedition occurred when the crew docked to the station on 2 November 2000, aboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-31, which had launched on 31 October 2000 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The first of these, STS-97, docked in early December 2000, and brought the first pair of large U.S. photovoltaic arrays, which increased the station's power capabilities fivefold.

[8] The second visiting shuttle mission was STS-98, which was docked in mid-February 2001 and delivered the US$1.4 billion research module Destiny, which increased the mass of the station beyond that of Mir for the first time.

[14] Questions had been raised by the Russian space agency about the choice of Shepherd as mission commander due to his lack of experience.

[16] Yuri Gidzenko was designated commander and pilot of the two-day Soyuz mission to the station, had one previous spaceflight, which was a 180-day stay aboard Mir.

[17] Shepherd expected one of the biggest challenges for the ISS would be the compatibility of technologies between Russian and U.S.[18] The first component of the International Space Station was the Zarya module, which was launched uncrewed on 20 November 1998.

[20] Krikalev, who would be a Flight Engineer on Expedition 1 flew on STS-88 and together with Shuttle Commander Robert D. Cabana became the first two people to jointly enter Unity and later Zarya.

[28] Due to several delays, including the fallout from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the station was not completed until 2021, with the arrival of the Nauka laboratory.

Major events during this time include the three-week-long Space Shuttle visits, which occurred in early December, mid-February, and at the end of the expedition in March.

[31][32][17] After 33 orbits of the Earth, and a series of rendezvous maneuvers performed by Gidzenko, they docked the Soyuz capsule to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module on 2 November 2000, at 09:21 UTC.

[33] Ninety minutes after docking, Shepherd opened the hatch to Zvezda and the crew members entered the complex.

[41] The astronauts had a heavy workload in the first month, as Shepherd told reporters in a space-to-ground interview: "To me, the biggest challenge is trying to pack 30 hours into an 18-hour work day.

For example, the activation of a food warmer in Zvezda's galley was scheduled for 30 minutes, but it took the astronauts a day and a half to turn it on.

[46] The Expedition 1 crew took this opportunity to leave the station and tour the inside of the space shuttle, which was thought to be good for their psychological well-being.

[39] Prior to Endeavour docking, the Russian resupply spacecraft Progress M1-4, which came to the station in mid-November, was undocked to make room for the space shuttle.

Citing a Naval tradition, for the New Year's entry of the station's log, Shepherd provided a poem on behalf of the crew.

[51] On 9 February 2001, Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the ISS, bringing the five American crew members of STS-98 temporarily to the station.

While the Shuttle was docked, the control of the station's orientation was switched from propellants to electrically powered gyroscopes, which had been installed in September 2000.

[57] NASA used several techniques to prevent the three crew members from suffering the effects of the "three-month wall" psychological barrier, which had caused depression in previous astronauts.

A few hours after docking, the hatch opened, and all ten astronauts greeted each other, setting a new record for the number of people simultaneously in the ISS.

Unable to retrieve it, NASA engineers tracked the tool, and decided to use Discovery's thrusters on 14 March to boost the station four kilometers higher, to ensure the ISS would not collide with the piece of space debris.

[60] By 14 March, the expedition crews had completed the change over, but until the shuttle undocked, Shepherd officially remained commander of the station.

[60] Shepherd, a former Navy SEAL, said during the change over ceremony: "May the good will, spirit and sense of mission we had enjoyed on board endure.

"[62] The commander of Discovery, Jim Wetherbee, said "For Captain Shepherd and his crew, we hold you in admiration as we prepare to bring you home.

Once Discovery was about 2 feet (0.61 m) away from the station, shuttle pilot James Kelly, standing at the aft flight deck controls turned the steering jets back on and fired them to begin slowly moving away.

[64] Two days after the landing, coincidentally, Mir was intentionally burned up during atmospheric reentry, ending its 15 years in orbit.

A normal treadmill would have produced enough vibrations to shake the station, and potentially affect the sensitive science experiments on board.

[78] For example, a photo of 1 January 2001 shows Mount Cleveland, Alaska, with a plume of smoke, prior to its eruption the following month.

[79] On 23 January 2001, the crew observed a unique perspective of a plume of volcanic ash coming from Popocatépetl, an active volcano 70 kilometres southeast of Mexico City.

[82] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.