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A day in space station11/28/2023 ![]() Together with the Canadian Space Agency, ESA and Japan’s JAXA, collaboration between 15 nations saw a truly International Space Station emerge. The Mir Space Station as seen from Space Shuttle Endeavour during STS-89. Space Station Freedom, as it was then called, had undergone several redesigns as NASA engineers struggled with the challenges of building a large, stable structure in space.īut the fall of the Soviet Union made way for former adversaries to forge new partnerships, and Roscosmos brought invaluable experience from its own space stations, Salyut and Mir. Williams explains: “It was not an easy road even to get to that point: not only the political support but the technical integration of all of these components that needed to go together.”īy 1993, 9 years had passed since US President Reagan’s missive to build a space station within the decade. International Space Station Expedition 1 crew, 1 month into their mission. Zarya was the first module launched into orbit in 1998 (funded by the US, and built and launched by the Russian space agency Roscosmos), shortly followed by the US-built and launched Unity module.Īfter an 18-month delay, the Russian-built Zvezda, which would provide life support systems for the ISS, was connected to Zarya in September 2000, in readiness for the first crew. Credit: NASA How was the International Space Station built?īack in 2000 the ISS was a fraction of its current size with just three modules providing the basics for permanent habitation. The International Space Station imaged by an STS-131 astronaut on Space Shuttle Discovery, 17 April 2010. 231 Spacewalks since launch, including during construction.73 Wingspan in metres of the solar arrays.1,500,000 Lines of flight computer code.350,000 Number of sensors monitoring crew health and safety.2,700 Individual science investigations.4 Minimum time in hours for a spacecraft to arrive after launch.16 Frequency of Earth orbits in 24 hours.240 Number of individuals who have visited.4 billion Maintenance cost in US dollars per year.27,600 Orbital speed in kilometres per hour. ![]() Credit: NASA In numbers: facts about the ISS Most of those flights took up a major component some were logistics missions that supplied the ISS.” NASA astronaut Jeff Williams conducts a spacewalk on the ISS during mission STS-101, one of many missions dedicated to the supply and construction of the uncrewed Space Station. “And there were also about roughly 40 Russian rocket launches that supported the assembly of the ISS. “When you look at the whole assembly, there were around 37 Space Shuttle flights,” says NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, who saw 4 trips to the ISS including STS-101, the 3rd mission devoted to its construction. The living quarters are altogether larger than a 6-bedroom house and include 6 sleeping quarters, 2 bathrooms, a gym and a 360° view bay window called the Cupola. Modular in design and constructed over 13 years, it has 8 solar arrays, a main truss ‘backbone’ and pressurised habitation modules. It weighs around 420,000kg (more than 320 cars) and at 109m is longer than a football pitch. The ISS is an engineering marvel: the largest structure ever built in space. The rising Sun shines through the solar arrays of the International Space Station. The International Space Station travels at 27,600km per hour, meaning astronauts on the ISS see 16 sunrises a day and make one orbit around Earth in 90 minutes. With each sunrise we awake and go about our daily lives with little thought that a group of humans are living on the International Space Station, 400km above Earth. Listen to our latest podcast on 20 years of the ISS: There are generations growing up today who have only known a time when the human race lived both on and off planet Earth. Since their arrival, a steady crew rotation means the ISS has never once gone unoccupied. It began on 2 November 2000 when the crew of Expedition-1 – US astronaut William ‘Bill’ Shepherd, and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko – docked their Soyuz spacecraft with the ISS, climbed through the hatch and switched on the lights. International Space Station: history and factsįor the past 20 years there has been a continuous human presence in space on the International Space Station (ISS).
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