

Periodically the engines of a docked spacecraft are used to ‘reboost’ the station to a higher altitude to keep it in orbit.

The station has a pressurized volume, where the astronauts live, which is about the same as a 747 Jumbo jet! This is almost four times bigger than the Mir Space Station, and five times bigger than NASA’s Skylab.

This makes it the largest man-made structure ever built in space! The completed ISS has a mass of over 420,000 kilograms (926,000 pounds) and is over 108.5 m (356 feet) wide – the same size as an entire American football field.It took more than 115 space flights by spacecraft like the Space Shuttle and Proton rocket to construction the ISS.Two weeks later NASA launched their ‘Unity’ module. It was launched aboard a Proton rocket in 1998. The first piece of the ISS to be launched was the Russian module ‘Zarya’.
International space station speed how to#
The objective of the ISS is to be an orbiting laboratory to conducted space-based experiments, test equipment in micro-gravity and learn how to live in space for long periods of time.The International Space Station (ISS) is a joint programme between the space agencies of America (NASA), Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency (ESA).The 25 Coolest Facts About The International Space Station!
