Missions · Space Codex
International Space Station
A football-field-sized laboratory circling Earth about every 90 minutes, continuously crewed since November 2000 by a partnership of five space agencies.
Crewed laboratory in low Earth orbit
At a glance
Key points
- Continuously crewed since November 2000
- Laps Earth about every 90 minutes
- As long as a football field
Built in orbit
No rocket could launch the station whole, so it was assembled piece by piece. A Proton rocket lifted the Russian-built Zarya module in November 1998, and two weeks later the shuttle Endeavour brought the US Unity node to join it. Dozens of flights over the following years added laboratories from the US, Europe and Japan, a Canadian robotic arm, the long truss and its solar wings. The first long-duration crew moved in on 2 November 2000, and someone has been aboard ever since.
How it ends
A station of about 420 tonnes cannot be left to fall at random: large pieces would survive re-entry over an unpredictable area. NASA has contracted SpaceX for a US Deorbit Vehicle, a Dragon-derived tug with a contract worth up to $843 million. After the last crew leaves, it is planned to push the station into a remote stretch of ocean in the South Pacific. Most of it should burn up, but dense parts such as truss sections may reach the sea. Commercial stations are meant to take over before then.
How it is shown here
The station follows a 51.6° orbit about 6% of Earth's radius above the surface, and laps the planet about 15.5 times per Earth rotation, as the real one does. The model is enlarged thousands of times: at true scale it would be far smaller than a pixel. It dims when it passes into Earth's shadow.
What we still don't know
Exactly when operations end: NASA and its partners plan to retire and deorbit the station around 2030.
Missions
- 1998–
International Space Station
NASA / Roscosmos / ESA / JAXA / CSAActiveContinuously crewed since Nov 2000, about 400 km above Earth.
First-hand · our 3D model
How we render it
The ISS appears in the Earth view on Explore, at the full quality setting only. It circles at 1.066 Earth radii (420 km up) on an orbit inclined 51.6° to the equator, and laps the planet 15.5 times for every turn Earth makes in the scene, as the real station does each sidereal day. A faint line marks its track where it crosses the sunlit disc, fading out near the limb and in Earth's shadow, and the station keeps its belly towards Earth.
The station is drawn far larger than true scale, at 7% of Earth's radius, or it would be well under a pixel. A soft glint makes it read as the bright moving point it is. When it passes into Earth's shadow, modelled as a cylinder behind the planet, it dims almost to black and brightens again at orbital sunrise.
The model is from NASA 3D Resources, loaded on demand as a Draco-compressed file and released when you leave the destination. It carries no NASA insignia, and its use implies no endorsement. The scene has no environment map for metal to reflect, so metalness is capped to keep metal parts from reading black.
Related entries
- EarthThe only known world with life
- Artemis programmeNASA's return to the Moon
Sources
- NASA: Selects International Space Station US Deorbit Vehicle (Jun 2024) (opens in a new tab)
- NASA: Space station facts and figures (opens in a new tab)
- NASA: Zarya module (opens in a new tab)
- NASA: ISS transition plan FAQ (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed against these sources. Built from public NASA, ESA and JPL data; not affiliated with or endorsed by any agency.