The ISS: Over 20 Years of Science Among the Stars
For more than two decades, humans have had a presence in space through the International Space Station — an orbiting laboratory operated by NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency and Russia's Roscosmos.
The various parts — or "modules" — of the ISS were sent into space starting in 1998, when Roscosmos launched the Zarya module, which was followed by NASA's Unity module. And then in 2000, a life support system — on the Russia-built Zvezda — was connected.
That same year, the station got its first crew: Bill Shepherd from the US and Russia's Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. By October 2022, 263 people from 20 countries had spent time on the ISS. There is usually a crew of seven on it at any time.
The ISS travels at 27,600 kilometers per hour around 400 kilometers above Earth. This means the astronauts do a complete orbit of our planet in 90 minutes, and see 16 sunrises every day.
The ISS allows us to monitor the Earth, collecting data that helps us better understand weather patterns and changes in the environment. It has also provided important research into how being in space affects the human body and ways of growing food off Earth.
Research done on the ISS has also taught us new things about serious diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer.
This is just some of the work done on the ISS to benefit both life on Earth now and a future that could see humans living on other planets.
But the ISS may not see that future.
In July 2022, Russia announced plans to end its involvement in the ISS after 2024. And NASA says the station will only continue working until 2030, before being guided to crash into the Pacific Ocean in 2031.
