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| International Space Station | ||||
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| ISS Statistics | ||||
| Crew: | 2 | As of November 15 , 2004 | ||
| Perigee: | 350.3 km | " | ||
| Apogee: | 361.7 km | " | ||
| Orbital period: | 91.66 minutes | " | ||
| Inclination: | 51.63 degrees | " | ||
| Orbits per day: | 15.71 | " | ||
| Mean altitude loss per day: | ~100 meters | " | ||
| Days in orbit since Zarya launch: | 2,187 | As of November 15, 2004 | ||
| Days occupied since Expedition 1 boarded on November 2, 2000: | 1,474 | As of November 15, 2004 | ||
| Revolutions since Zarya launch: | 34,200 | As of November 15, 2004 | ||
| Distance traveled since Zarya launch: | ~1,400,000,000 km | " | ||
| Average speed: | 7.69 km/sec | 27,685.7 km/h | ||
| Current Mass: | 187,016 kg | As of November 15, 2004 | ||
| Propellant Mass: | ~ 3,951 kg | " | ||
| Current Living Volume: | 425 cubic meters | " | ||
| Pressure (mmHg): | ~ 757 | . | ||
| Oxygen (mmHg): | ~ 162.4 | . | ||
| CO2 (mmHg): | ~ 4.8 | . | ||
| Temperature (deg C): | ~ 26.9 | . | ||
| Current ISS Elements | ||||
| Element: | Launched: | Mass: (kg) | ||
| Zarya FGB: | November 20, 1998 | 19,323 | ||
| Unity - Node 1: | December 4, 1998 | 11,612 | ||
| Zvezda Service Module: | July 12, 2000 | 19,050 | ||
| Z1 Truss: | October 11, 2000 | 8,755 | ||
| P6 Truss - Solar Array: | November 30, 2000 | 15,900 | ||
| Destiny Laboratory: | February 7, 2001 | 14,515 | ||
| Canadarm2: | April 19, 2001 | 4,899 | ||
| Quest Joint Airlock: | July 12, 2001 | 6,064 | ||
| Pirs Airlock - Docking Compartment: | August 14, 2001 | 3,900 | ||
| S0 Truss: | April 8, 2002 | 13,970 | ||
| Mobile Base for Canadarm2: | June 5, 2002 | 1,450 | ||
| S1 Truss: | October 7, 2002 | 12,598 | ||
| P1 Truss: | November 23, 2002 | 12,598 | ||
| International Space Station | ||||
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| ISS Diagram | ||||
Continuing on from the United States' Skylab and Russia's Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) represents a permanent human presence in space: it has been manned with a crew of at least two since November 2, 2000. Each time that the crew is replaced both the old and the new crew as well as one or more visitors are present.
The ISS is a joint project of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA/ASC), European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Russian Federal Space Agency and the U.S.' National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA).
The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 360 km, a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit. (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts. The station, on average, loses 100-meters of altitude daily.) It orbits Earth at a period of about 92 minutes; on December 1, 2003 it had completed over 33,500 orbits since launch.
It is serviced primarily by the Space Shuttle, and Soyuz and Progress spacecraft units. It is still being built, but is home to some experimentation already. At present, the station has a capacity for a crew of three. So far, all members of the (permanent) crew have come from the Russian or United States space programs. The ISS has however been visited by many more astronauts, a number of them from other countries (and by 2 space tourists).
Building the ISS will require more than 50 assembly and utilization flights. Of these flights, 39 are Space Shuttle flights. In addition to the assembly and utilization flights, approximately 30 Progress flights are required to provide logistics. When assembly is complete, the ISS will have a pressurized volume of 1,200 cubic meters, a mass of 419,000 kilograms, 110 kilowatts of power output, a truss 108.4 meters long, modules 74 meters long, and a crew of six.
The station consists of several modules and elements:
Already launched - (in order of assembly)
Launched on periodic resupply missions
Scheduled for launch by Shuttle after return to flight
(listed in order of planned launch sequence)
Scheduled for launch by Proton rocket
Elements delayed, on hold or cancelled
Other major subsystems include
As configured as of 2003, the station massed 187,016 kg and had 425 cubic meters of living space. Its extreme dimensions were 73 meters wide, 52 meters long, and 27.5 meters high. Operations had included 16 American Space Shuttle flights and 22 Russian flights. Of the Russian flights, 8 were manned and 14 were unmanned flights. Construction had required 51 spacewalks, of which 25 were shuttle-based and 26 ISS-based. Total spacewalk time at the station has been 318 hours, 37 minutes.
On December 1, 1987, NASA announced the names of four U.S. companies who were awarded contracts to help manufacture the US-built parts of the Space Station: Boeing Aerospace, General Electric's Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas, and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell.
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. They decided to call the space station "Alpha" but the use of that name was restricted to their mission.
The ISS has had a troubled history. Initially planned as a NASA "Space Station Freedom" and promoted by President Reagan, it was found to be too expensive. After the end of the Cold War, it was taken up again as a joint project of NASA and Russia's Rosaviakosmos. Since then, it has been far more expensive than originally anticipated by NASA, and is behind schedule. As of 2003 it is unable to yet accommodate the expected crew of seven, thus severely limiting the amount of science that can be performed on it and angering European partners in the project. In July, 2004, NASA agreed to complete the station to the level where it could support 4 crewmembers and to launch additional sections like the Japanese experiment module. NASA would continue to handle construction while Russia would continue to launch and recover the Station's crews.
There are many critics of NASA who view the project as a waste of time and money, inhibiting progress on more useful projects: for instance, the estimated $100 billion USD lifetime cost could pay for dozens of unmanned scientific missions. There are many critics of space exploration in general, who argue that the $100 billion USD would be better spent on problems on Earth.
Advocates of space exploration hold that such criticisms are at the very least short-sighted, and perhaps deceptive. Advocates of manned space research and exploration claim that these efforts have indeed produced billions of dollars of tangible benefits to people on Earth. In some estimates, it has been held that the indirect economic benefit, made from commercialization of technologies developed during manned space exploration, has returned more than seven times the initial investment to the economy (some conservative estimates put the amount at three times the initial investment). Whether the ISS, as distinct from the wider space program, will be a major contributor in this sense is, however, a subject of strong debate.
The ISS has seen the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, who spent 20 million USD to fly aboard a Russian supply mission and the first space wedding when Yuri Malenchenko on the station married Ekaterina Dmitriev who was in Texas.
After the accident of the Space Shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, and the subsequent suspension of the US Space Shuttle program, there remains some uncertainty over the future of the ISS. Its construction is practically halted as major parts of the ISS are so heavy that they cannot be lifted to the ISS by any launcher currently in service. For example the European Space Agency's laboratory module Columbus is ready to go, but can't be delivered into orbit by currently available launchers. The Russian Energia launcher (or even the Buran shuttle) could have been brought back into service and would have easily been capable of lifting such heavier payloads for as long as the Space Shuttle remains grounded. However, this was not done, possibly for political and economical reasons. It is also unclear whether the Energia program could have been reactivated in a substantially shorter period of time than the likely delay until the expected recommencement of Space Shuttle flights. In the meantime, crew exchange is done using the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Starting with Soyuz TMA-2, two-astronaut caretaker crews have been launched, instead of the previous crews of three.
Because the ISS has not been serviced by a shuttle for an extended period, it has built up a large amount of trash and waste which is starting to hinder station operations.
On 27 February 2004, ISS crew Michael Foale and Alexander Kalery conducted the first spacewalk involving its entire crew ( Soyuz 26 was the first involving the whole crew of a vehicle). Most of the spacewalk's goals, the installation of external equipment, were accomplished before a kinked tube in Kalery's suit caused a cooling malfunction and forced an early end.
The possibility of an extremely high-speed collision with space debris is considered a long-term threat to the International Space Station. One solution which has been proposed by NASA and others is a laser broom. There are concerns that such a proposal might contravene existing treaties banning laser weapons in space.
The International Space Station is the second most visited space craft in the history of space flight. As of October 24, 2004 it has had 130 visitors. Mir had 137 visitors. See Space station. Almost 1/4 of astronauts who have ever flown into space have been to the ISS. See the alphabetical List of International Space Station visitors.
List of ISS spacewalks performed from the ISS or visiting spacecraft.
Please see List of manned spaceflights to the ISS for a comprehensive chronological list of all manned spacecraft that have visited the ISS, including the spacecraft's respective crews. This list also includes the ISS' crews referenced in the previous section.
List of unmanned spaceflights to the ISS. Progress supply flights and unmanned automatic docking space station modules.
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