international space station

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STS-133 International Space Station after undocking 5

International Space Station – a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit.

  • Orbit height: 230 miles (370 km)
  • Speed on orbit: 4.791 miles/s (7.71 km/s)
  • Max speed: 17,150 mph (27,600 km/h)
  • Launch date: November 20, 1998

The ISS is a satellite that orbits Earth once every 90 minutes at an altitude of over 220 miles. It’s a joint project sponsored by the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and several European countries. The ISS can house up to 10 astronauts for expeditions that can last up to six months at a time. During that time, astronauts aboard the ISS follow a detailed daily schedule that tells them when to get up, eat, exercise, work, relax, and go to sleep.

[[https://spotthestation.nasa.gov%7CSpot the Station]] – Watch the International Space Station pass overhead from several thousand worldwide locations. It is the third brightest object in the sky and easy to spot if you know when to look up. Visible to the naked eye, it looks like a fast-moving plane only much higher and traveling thousands of miles an hour faster!

ISS-43 Night Earth observation

Departing Space Station Commander Provides Tour of Orbital Laboratory (video 25:04) – Nov 19, 2012 In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The tour includes scenes of each of the station’s modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.

Now the largest artificial body in orbit, it can often be seen at the appropriate time with the naked eye from Earth. The ISS consists of pressurized modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components. ISS components have been launched by American Space Shuttles as well as Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets. Budget constraints led to the merger of three space station projects with the Japanese Kibō module and Canadian robotics.

Vehicle Fleet and Modules – key elements of the station and the vehicles that helped put the complex in orbit.

Columbus Laboratory – flexibility provides room for the researchers on the ground, aided by the station’s crew, to conduct thousands of experiments in life sciences, materials sciences, fluid physics and other research in a weightless environment not possible on Earth. The station crew can conduct experiments outside the module within the vacuum of space, thanks to four exterior mounting platforms that can accommodate external payloads.

Space Station Construction – Construction of the International Space Station began with the Zarya module’s launch in November 1998 followed by many more station assembly missions.

Meet the people in Space Flight Engineering

  • European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti has had a career marked by superlatives: She was the first Italian woman in space and also holds the record for the longest single spaceflight for a woman at just hours under 200 days. During the Fortuna mission to the International Space Station, which launched in late 2014 and came to an end last June, she became well-known for her regular photos, videos, and taco-making skills. Flight Engineer for Expedition 42 and 43. During ASI’s Futura Mission, Samantha conducted experiments in the Station’s laboratories. Samantha is a Captain in the Italian Air Force.

What’s the problem?
Space Station. The first section was put in orbit in 1998. Two further pieces were added before the first crew was sent. The first crew arrived on November 2, 2000 and consisted of US astronaut William Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev.

  • Ask – What are some of the advantages of having a space stations available? ISS represents a permanent human presence in space.
  • Imagine – What were some of the problems that had to be overcome to build and position the space station?
  • Design, Build – How was the work broken up so many countries could contribute to designing and building the space station?
  • Improve – What are some of the changes and improvements that have been added since the first modules of the space station was launched in 1998?

That’s engineering

  • [/Vacuum%20in%20space Vacuum in space] – Much of outer space is an almost perfect vacuum, with only a small number of atoms per cubic metre, the most common being hydrogen (H) and helium (He), dust, photons (background radiation), and neutrinos. The current temperature is about 3 K – about 3 degrees above the absolute zero of temperature. Neither these photons nor the neutrinos produce a significant interaction with matter, so stars, planets and spacecraft move freely in this near perfect vacuum of interstellar space.

Engineering ideas

  • microgravity, pressurized module, docking, air, electrical power, water, robotic arm, orbit, launch, assembly

Do it
Now it is your turn. Here are some challenges for you to work on…

  • Station Spacewalk Game – Experience what it’s like to conduct NASA repair work on the International Space Station – requires Unity player installation
  • Watch the ISS pass overhead. Station Tracker – where the Station is now. Spot The Station will give you a list of upcoming space station sighting opportunities for your location. Lists sighting opportunities for 4,600 locations worldwide. If your specific city or town isn’t listed, pick one that is fairly close to you. The space station is visible for a long distance around each of the listed locations.

News, updates

Learn more…

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