International Space Station

International Space Station celebrates 20 years

The International Space Station has hosted people from 19 countries

On October 31st, 2000: William Shepherd of NASA and Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev of Russia, were launched from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket, and two days later became the first residents of the International Space Station (ISS). The crew was called ‘Expedition 1’. Ever since, the ISS, which is a collaboration between 25 space agencies and organisations, has hosted 241 crew and tourists, from 19 countries.

The International Space Station (ISS) has a suite of Russian living and research quarters, an American lab, a European lab, a Japanese lab, three connecting nodes, a Canadian robot arm, a multi-window cupola (with 360-degree views of Earth), and a football-field-sized truss structure, which holds four sets of solar arrays, batteries, and radiators.

The ISS has hosted hundreds of scientific experiments. Till date, it has supported more than 2,700 research investigations from 103 countries, ranging from subjects like life and material sciences to fundamental physics and experimental technology. The ISS also researches how long-term spaceflight affects living creatures.

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