The International Space Station marks 2 decades of humans on board

There are already a number of events scheduled, leading up to the 20th anniversary celebration on Monday. NASA and space agencies around the world are using this milestone to underscore our achievements in space since the end of manned missions in deep space in the 1970s and the space shuttle program in 2011. Former astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who participated in its construction, finds it hard to believe that the ISS has been inhabited for two decades. He has been to the orbital station three times and was the last person to visit before permanent missions began in 2000. “After so many years, he is still in very good shape,” López-Alegría said. “The ISS is the most audacious and complex construction project ever undertaken in space. It is quite surprising that everything fits together perfectly and works so well.”

Astronaut Michael A. López-Alegría, Expedition 14 Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer, participates in a 6-hour, 18-minute spacewalk on February 22, 2007 to retract a jammed antenna on a spacecraft charging and performing a few miscellaneous tasks.

The original uploader was Gildir on English Wikipedia.

“The space station is an integral part of space exploration,” López-Alegría said. “We have not yet been able to build reliable life support systems for an extended mission to Mars, such as carbon dioxide scrubbers to keep the air breathable for long periods without replacements. The space station is the best place to test things like that.” And That’s what’s amazing about the orbiting space environment and microgravity research lab. Even more surprising is that 241 people from 19 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 3,000 research and educational research of people in 108 countries and areas.

This artist’s concept shows the Freedom Space Station as it would look like orbiting Earth, illustrated by Marshall Space Flight Center artist Tom Buzbee. Image from 1991.

NASA / Tom Buzbee

The ISS evolved from Space Station Freedom

The International Space Station orbiting the Earth today began as an idea in 1984 to build an Earth-orbiting station with a permanent crew. Russia had the same idea with its Mir-2 proposal in 1976. It turns out that the ISS is the ninth space station inhabited by crews, after the Soviet and later Russian Salyut, Almaz and Mir stations and the American Skylab. The ISS has been a collaborative project involving five space agencies, including NASA, Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ownership and use of the space station is established through treaties and intergovernmental agreements.

Leonardo, the newly installed Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) of the International Space Station appears in this image, dated March 2, 2011, photographed by a member of the Expedition 26 crew while the space shuttle Discovery (STS-133) remains docked to the station. .

POT

The ISS is the largest man-made object in space and the largest satellite in low Earth orbit, regularly visible to the naked eye from the Earth’s surface. It can make 15.54 orbits every 24 hours, and each orbit takes 92.68 minutes. And the ISS is also moving fast. Its orbital speed is 7.66 kilometers per second, or 27,600 kilometers per hour (17,100 mph), according to Heavens-Above. The space station is divided into two main sections: the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS), operated by Russia; and the United States Orbital Segment (USOS), which is shared by many nations. The last large pressurized module, Leonardo, was installed in 2011 and an experimental inflatable space habitat was added in 2016.

Customize iconic images from the last 20 years of the ISS in your favorite colors with NASA’s edition of the Art Coloring Book.

Google Arts and Culture Experiments

Celebrate with NASA

Google joined the 20th anniversary celebration by creating a couple of fun activities for kids and adults. The first fun activity is a solo or multiplayer Puzzle Party experiment. It is the first Google game produced in collaboration with a single partner, it includes a dedicated set of images from the NASA ISS archives on Google Arts & Culture to play with your friends and family. Collect photos ranging from exterior views of the space station to astronauts on spacewalks, to learn more about the incredible work being done in orbit. For those who enjoy coloring pages, again for kids and adults, recreate and mix together some of the most iconic shots of the ISS, from shuttle launches to sightings of Earth from the panoramic window of the station known as Dome, with a NASA edition of Art. Coloring Book Experiment, which allows anyone to make these images their own.