And it has 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters) of habitable space aboard, a figure that increases every time another vessel docks there. Weight-wise, the station tips the scales at 925,335 pounds (419,725 kilograms). The ISS also contains multiple sets of broad, rectangular solar panels with 240-foot (73-meter) wingspans. At 357 feet (108.8 meters) in length, the aforementioned truss is almost as long as an American football field.
Īs home offices go, the ISS is pretty darn big. During this time, the ISS has been manned continuously - as of this writing, 66 astronaut expeditions have successfully reached the station.Įxpedition 67 began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-19 on March 30, 2022, with NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn taking over as ISS commander. Since then, many spacecraft have delivered parts of the ISS into orbit and its assembly has progressed. The crew spent four months and 17 days aboard the ISS, activating systems and conducting experiments. A three-member crew, the ISS's first, was launched from Russia Oct.
The list of participating countries would grow during the 1990s as Russia and Brazil joined the project, although Brazil would eventually cut ties with the ISS in 2007. joined forces with Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency (a program then co-managed by the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and West Germany) to make this station a reality. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proposed a permanently inhabited, government- and industry-supported space station be built by the United States in cooperation with several other countries. Sounds like something unreal out of a science fiction novel, right? For the crews of the International Space Station (ISS), it's a reality. Mountains, lakes and oceans pass by in a beautiful stream of rapidly changing scenery as you orbit the Earth every 90 minutes. Imagine you wake up in the morning, look out your window and see the vast blue horizon of Earth and the blackness of space. The International Space Station (seen here in 2018) has been continuously occupied by astronauts since 2000.