All about the International Space Station

Its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011, although the station continually evolves to include new missions and experiments. It has been continuously occupied since Nov. 2, 2000.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a multi-nation construction project that is the largest single structure humans ever put into space. Its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011, although the station continually evolves to include new missions and experiments. It has been continuously occupied since Nov. 2, 2000.

As of November 2020, 242 astronauts, cosmonauts, and space tourists from 19 different nations have visited the space station, many of them multiple times; this includes 152 Americans, 49 Russians, 9 Japanese, 8 Canadians, and 5 Italians.

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Crew activities

Astronauts spend most of their time on the ISS performing experiments and maintenance, and at least two hours of every day are allocated to exercise and personal care. They also occasionally perform spacewalks, conduct media/school events for outreach, and post updates to social media, as Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, an ISS commander, did in 2013.

Finding the space station in the sky

The space station flies at an average altitude of 248 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. It circles the globe every 90 minutes at a speed of about 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h). In one day, the station travels about the distance it would take to go from Earth to the moon and back.
It can be seen from Earth without the use of a telescope by night sky observers who know when and where to look. Visit https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Major contributors

Astronaut time and research time on the space station is allocated to space agencies according to how much money or resources (such as modules or robotics) that they contribute. The ISS includes contributions from 15 nations. NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia) and the European Space Agency are the major partners of the space station who contribute most of the funding; the other partners are the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Records in space

• Most consecutive days in space by an American: 340 days, which happened when Scott Kelly took part in a one-year mission to the ISS in 2015-16 (along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko).
• Longest single spaceflight by a woman: 289 days, during American astronaut Peggy Whitson’s 2016-17 mission aboard the space station.
• Most total time spent in space by a woman: Peggy Whitson, who racked up most of her 665 days in space on the ISS.
• Most women in space at once: This happened in April 2010 when women from two spaceflight missions met at the ISS.
• Biggest space gathering: 13 people, during NASA’s STS-127 shuttle mission aboard Endeavour in 2009. (It’s been tied a few times during later missions.)
• Longest single spacewalk: 8 hours and 56 minutes during STS-102, for an ISS construction mission in 2001.
• Longest Russian spacewalk: 8 hours and 13 minutes during Expedition 54, to repair an ISS antenna. Russian astronauts Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov participated.