The International Space Station (ISS)
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest space station ever built, the largest structure ever assembled in space, and one of the most complex international scientific projects in history. Now essentially complete, the ISS is more than four times larger than the old Soviet Mir space station and longer than an American football field (including the end-zones). It has a pressurized living and working space approximately equivalent to the volume of a 747 jumbo-jet or a conventional five-bedroom house, and can accommodate up to seven astronauts. It The orbit of ISS, with a perigee of 278 km, apogee of 460 km, and inclination of 51.6°, allows the station to be reached by the launch vehicles of all the international partners for delivery of crews, components, and supplies. The orbit also enables observations to be made of 85% of the globe and over-flight of 95% of Earth's population. The ISS has 15 pressurized modules, including laboratories, living quarters, docking compartments, airlocks and nodes. In 1984 President Ronald Reagan committed the United States to developing a permanently-occupied space station and, along with NASA, invited other countries to join the project. Within little more than a year, nine of ESA's 13 member countries had signed on, as had Canada and Japan. In 1991 President George Bush (senior) and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to joint Space Shuttle-Mir missions that would lay the groundwork for cooperative space station efforts. On-orbit assembly of the station began on November 20, 1998, with the launch of the Russian-built Zarya control module, and is due for completion in 2010. Although the United States, through NASA, leads the ISS project, 15 other countries are involved in building and operating various parts of the station – Russia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, and 11 member nations of ESA (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). Contributions include:
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has a gymnasium, two bathrooms, and a bay window. The solar panels, spanning more than half an acre, supply 84 kilowatts – 60 times more electrical power than that available to Mir. The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000, and is visible, at times, in the night sky to the naked eye. It will continue in operation until at least 2015, and possibly as late as 2020.
