Australia Twitter: International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is an internationally developed research facility that is being assembled in low Earth orbit. On-orbit construction of the station began in 1998 and is scheduled for completion by late 2011. The station is expected to remain in operation until at least 2015, and likely 2020. With a greater cross-sectional area than that of any previous space station, the ISS can be seen from Earth with the naked eye, and is by far the largest artificial satellite that has ever orbited Earth. The ISS serves as a research laboratory that has a microgravity environment in which crews conduct experiments in biology, chemistry, medicine, physiology and physics, as well as astronomical and meteorological observatio The station provides a unique environment for the testing of the spacecraft systems that will be required for missions to the Moon and Mars. The ISS is operated by Expedition crews of six astronauts and cosmonauts, with the station programme maintaining an uninterrupted human presence in space since the launch of Expedition 1 on 31 October 2000, a total of 9 years and 328 days. The programme is thus approaching the current record for uninterrupted human presence on a space station, set aboard Mir, of 3,644 days (8 days short of 10 years), with the ISS expected to take the record on 23 October 2010.As of 1 June 2010, the crew of Expedition 24 is aboard.

The ISS is a synthesis of several space station projects that include the American Freedom, the Soviet/Russian Mir-2, the European Columbus and the Japanese Kibō. Budget constraints led to the merger of these projects into a single multi-national programme.The ISS project began in 1994 with the Shuttle–Mir programme, and the first module of the station, Zarya, was launched in 1998 by Russia. Assembly continues, as pressurised modules, external trusses, and other components are launched by American space shuttles, Russian Proton rockets and Russian Soyuz rockets. As of May 2010, the station consists of fourteen pressurised modules and an extensive integrated truss structure (ITS). Power is provided by sixteen solar arrays mounted on the external truss, in addition to four smaller arrays on the Russian modules. The station is maintained at an orbit between 278 km (173 mi) and 460 km (286 mi) altitude, and travels at an average speed of 27,743.8 km/h (17,239.2 mph), completing 15.7 orbits per day.

Operated as a joint project between the five participant space agencies, the station's sections are controlled by mission control centres on the ground operated by the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The ownership and use of the space station is established in intergovernmental treaties and agreements that allow the Russian Federation to retain full ownership of its own modules in the Russian Orbital Segment, with the US Orbital Segment, the remainder of the station, allocated between the other international partners. The cost of the station has been estimated by ESA as €100 billion over 30 years,and, although estimates range from 35 billion dollars to 160 billion dollars, the ISS is believed to be the most expensive object ever constructed. The financing, research capabilities and technical design of the ISS programme have been criticised because of the high cost. The station is serviced by Soyuz spacecraft, Progress spacecraft, space shuttles, the Automated Transfer Vehicle and the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-II), and has been visited by astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations.

Purpose

The International Space Station (ISS) is an internationally developed satellite currently being assembled in Low Earth Orbit. Primarily a research laboratory, the ISS offers an advantage over spacecraft such as NASA's Space Shuttle because it is a long-term platform in the space environment, where extended studies are conducted. The presence of a permanent crew affords the ability to monitor, replenish, repair, and replace experiments and components of the spacecraft itself. Scientists on Earth have swift access to the crew's data and can modify experiments or launch new ones, benefits generally unavailable on specialised unmanned spacecraft.

Crews, who fly expeditions of several months duration, conduct scientific experiments each day (approximately 160 man-hours a week). As of the conclusion of Expedition 15, 138 major science investigations had been conducted on the ISS.Scientific findings, in fields from basic science to exploration research, are published every month.

The ISS provides a location in the relative safety of Low Earth Orbit to test spacecraft systems that will be required for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars. This provides experience in the maintenance, repair, and replacement of systems on-orbit, which will be essential in operating spacecraft further from Earth. Mission risks are reduced, and the capabilities of interplanetary spacecraft are advanced.

Part of the crew's mission is educational outreach and international cooperation. The crew of the ISS provide opportunities for students on Earth by running student-developed experiments, making educational demonstrations, and allowing for student participation in classroom versions of ISS experiments, NASA investigator experiments, and ISS engineering activities. The ISS programme itself, with the international cooperation that it represents, allows 14 nations to live and work together in space, providing lessons for future multi-national missions.

Scientific research on the ISS

Expedition 8 Commander and Science Officer Michael Foale conducts an inspection of the Microgravity Science Glovebox.

The ISS provides a platform to conduct experiments that require one or more of the unusual conditions present on the station. The primary fields of research include human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology. The 2005 NASA Authorization Act designated the American segment of the International Space Station as a national laboratory with the goal of increasing the use of the ISS by other federal agencies and the private sector.

Research on the ISS improves knowledge about the effects of long-term space exposure on the human body. Subjects currently under study include muscle atrophy, bone loss, and fluid shift. The data will be used to determine whether space colonisation and lengthy human spaceflight are feasible. As of 2006, data on bone loss and muscular atrophy suggest that there would be a significant risk of fractures and movement problems if astronauts landed on a planet after a lengthy interplanetary cruise (such as the six-month journey time required to fly to Mars). Large scale medical studies are conducted aboard the ISS via the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity study in which astronauts (including former ISS Commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts. The study considers the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions in space. Usually, there is no physician onboard the ISS and diagnosis of medical conditions is a challenge. It is anticipated that remotely guided ultrasound scans will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations where access to a trained physician is difficult.

Researchers are investigating the effect of the station's near-weightless environment on the evolution, development, growth and internal processes of plants and animals. In response to some of this data, NASA wants to investigate microgravity's effects on the growth of three-dimensional, human-like tissues, and the unusual protein crystals that can be formed in space.

The investigation of the physics of fluids in microgravity will allow researchers to model the behaviour of fluids better. Because fluids can be almost completely combined in microgravity, physicists investigate fluids that do not mix well on Earth. In addition, an examination of reactions that are slowed by low gravity and temperatures will give scientists a deeper understanding of superconductivity.

The study of materials science is an important ISS research activity, with the objective of reaping economic benefits through the improvement of techniques used on the ground. Other areas of interest include the effect of the low gravity environment on combustion, through the study of the efficiency of burning and control of emissions and pollutants. These findings may improve our knowledge about energy production, and lead to economic and environmental benefits. Future plans are for the researchers aboard the ISS to examine aerosols, ozone, water vapour, and oxides in Earth's atmosphere, as well as cosmic rays, cosmic dust, antimatter, and dark matter in the universe.

Origins

Shuttle–Mir Program

Space Station Freedom and Mir-2

Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to Mir on STS-71, during the Shuttle-Mir Program

The International Space Station represents a union of several national space station projects that originated during the Cold War. In the early 1980s, NASA planned to launch a modular space station called Freedom as a counterpart to the Soviet Salyut and Mir space stations, while the Soviets were planning to construct Mir-2 in the 1990s as a replacement for Mir. Because of budget and design constraints, Freedom never progressed past mock-ups and minor component tests.

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Space Race, Freedom was nearly cancelled by the United States House of Representatives. The post-Soviet economic chaos in Russia led to the cancellation of Mir-2, though only after its base block, DOS-8, had been constructed.Similar budgetary difficulties were faced by other nations with space station projects, which prompted the American government to negotiate with European states, Russia, Japan, and Canada in the early 1990s to begin a collaborative project.

In June 1992 American president George H. W. Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed to cooperate on space exploration. The resulting Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes called for a short, joint space programme, with one American astronaut deployed to the Russian space station Mir and two Russian cosmonauts deployed to a Space Shuttle.

In September 1993, American Vice-President Al Gore, Jr., and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, which eventually became the International Space Station. They also agreed, in preparation for this new project, that the United States would be heavily involved in the Mir programme as part of an agreement that later included Space Shuttle orbiters docking with Mir.

According to the plan, the International Space Station programme would combine the proposed space stations of all participant agencies: NASA's Freedom, the RSA's Mir-2 (with DOS-8 later becoming Zvezda), ESA's Columbus, and the Japanese Kibō laboratory. When the first module, Zarya, was launched in 1998, the station was expected to be completed by 2003. Delays have led to a revised estimated completion date of 2011.

Station structure

Assembly

Assembly of the International Space Station

Astronaut Ron Garan during an STS-124 ISS assembly spacewalk

Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke's video tour of the habitable part of the ISS from January 2009

The assembly of the International Space Station, a major endeavour in space architecture, began in November 1998. Astronauts install each element using spacewalks. By 27 November 2009, they had completed 136, totalling 849 hours of extra-vehicular activity (EVA), all devoted to assembly and maintenance of the station. Twenty-eight of these spacewalks originated from the airlocks of docked Space Shuttles; the remaining 108 were launched from the station.

The first segment of the ISS, Zarya, was launched on 20 November 1998 on a Russian Proton rocket, followed two weeks later by Unity—the first of three node modules—which was launched aboard Space Shuttle flight STS-88. This bare two-module core of the ISS remained unmanned for the next one-and-a-half years. In July 2000 the Russian module Zvezda was added, allowing a maximum crew of three to occupy the ISS continuously. The first resident crew, Expedition 1, arrived in November 2000 on Soyuz TM-31, midway between the flights of STS-92 and STS-97. These two Space Shuttle flights each added segments of the station's Integrated Truss Structure, which provided the embryonic station with communications, guidance, electrical grounding (on Z1), and power via solar arrays located on the P6 truss.

Over the next two years the station continued to expand. A Soyuz-U rocket delivered the Pirs docking compartment. The Space Shuttles Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour delivered the Destiny laboratory and Quest airlock, in addition to the station's main robot arm, the Canadarm2, and several more segments of the Integrated Truss Structure.

The expansion schedule was interrupted by the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-107 in 2003, with the resulting hiatus in the Space Shuttle programme halting station assembly until the launch of Discovery on STS-114 in 2005.

The official resumption of assembly was marked by the arrival of Atlantis, flying STS-115, which delivered the station's second set of solar arrays. Several more truss segments and a third set of arrays were delivered on STS-116, STS-117, and STS-118. As a result of the major expansion of the station's power-generating capabilities, more pressurised modules could be accommodated, and the Harmony node and Columbus European laboratory were added. These were followed shortly after by the first two components of Kibō. In March 2009, STS-119 completed the Integrated Truss Structure with the installation of the fourth and final set of solar arrays. The final section of Kibō was delivered in July 2009 on STS-127, followed by the Russian Poisk module. The third node, Tranquility, was delivered in February 2010 during STS-130 by the Space Shuttle Endeavour, alongside the Cupola, closely followed in May 2010 by the penultimate Russian module, Rassvet, delivered by Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-132.

As of May 2010, the station consisted of fourteen pressurised modules and the complete Integrated Truss Structure. Still to be launched is the Pressurized Multipurpose Module Leonardo, the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module Nauka and a number of external components, including the European Robotic Arm and Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02). Assembly is expected to be completed by 2011, by which point the station will have a mass in excess of 400 metric tons (440 short tons).

Pressurised modules

When completed, the ISS will consist of sixteen pressurised modules with a combined volume of around 1,000 cubic metres (35,000 cu ft). These modules include laboratories, docking compartments, airlocks, nodes and living quarters. Thirteen of these components are already in orbit, with the remaining three awaiting launch. Each module was or will be launched either by the Space Shuttle, Proton rocket or Soyuz rocket.

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