Partners Extend International Space Station for Benefit of Humanity

[Hartmann352]

Mark GarciaPosted on April 27, 2023

Categories Expedition 69Tags Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, International Space Station, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, NASA, Roscosmos, science


The International Space Station was pictured Oct. 4, 2018, from the departing Expedition 56 crew during a flyaround aboard the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft. Credit: Roscosmos/NASA

The International Space Station partners have committed to extending the operations of this unique platform in low Earth orbit where, for more than 22 years, humans have lived and worked for the benefit of humanity, conducting cutting-edge science and research in microgravity. The United States, Japan, Canada, and the participating countries of ESA (European Space Agency) have confirmed they will support continued space station operations through 2030 and Russia has confirmed it will support continued station operations through 2028. NASA will continue to work with its partner agencies to ensure an uninterrupted presence in low Earth orbit, as well as a safe and orderly transition from the space station to commercial platforms in the future.

“The International Space Station is an incredible partnership with a common goal to advance science and exploration,” said Robyn Gatens, director of the International Space Station Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Extending our time aboard this amazing platform allows us to reap the benefits of more than two decades of experiments and technology demonstrations, as well as continue to materialize even greater discovery to come.”

Since its launch in 1998, the International Space Station has been visited by 266 individuals from 20 countries. The space station is a unique scientific platform where crew members conduct experiments across multiple disciplines of research, including Earth and space science, biology, human physiology, physical sciences and technology demonstrations that could not be done on Earth. The crew living aboard the station are the hands of thousands of researchers on the ground conducting more than 3,300 experiments in microgravity. Now, in its third decade of operations, the station is in the decade of results when the platform can maximize its scientific return. Results are compounding, new benefits are materializing, and innovative research and technology demonstrations are building on previous work.

The space station is one of the most complex international collaborations ever attempted. It was designed to be interdependent, relies on contributions from across the partnership to function, and no partner currently has the capability to operate the space station without the other.

With a continued foothold in low Earth orbit, NASA’s Artemis missions are underway, setting up a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration.

See: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation...tional-space-station-for-benefit-of-humanity/



Space Station Facts

• An international partnership of five space agencies from 15 countries operates the International Space Station. Learn more about visitors to the space station by country.
• The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000.
• An international crew of seven people live and work while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes. Sometimes more are aboard the station during a crew handover.
• In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets.
• Peggy Whitson set the U.S. record for spending the most total time living and working in space at 665 days on Sept. 2, 2017.
• The acre of solar panels that power the station means sometimes you can look up in the sky at dawn or dusk and see the spaceship flying over your home, even if you live in a big city. Find sighting opportunities at http://spotthestation.nasa.gov.
• The living and working space in the station is larger than a six-bedroom house (and has six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym, and a 360-degree view bay window).
• To mitigate the loss of muscle and bone mass in the human body in microgravity, the astronauts work out at least two hours a day.
• Astronauts and cosmonauts regularly conduct spacewalks for space station construction, maintenance and upgrades.
• The solar array wingspan (356 feet, 109 meters) is longer than the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380 (262 feet, 80 meters).
• The large modules and other pieces of the station were delivered on 42 assembly flights, 37 on the U.S. space shuttles and five on Russian Proton/Soyuz rockets.
• The space station is 356 feet (109 meters) end-to-end, one yard shy of the full length of an American football field including the end zones.
• Eight miles of wire connects the electrical power system aboard the space station.
• The 55-foot robotic Canadarm2 has seven different joints and two end-effectors, or hands, and is used to move entire modules, deploy science experiments and even transport spacewalking astronauts.
• Eight spaceships can be connected to the space station at once.
• A spacecraft can arrive at the space station as soon as four hours after launching from Earth.
• Four different cargo spacecraft deliver science, cargo and supplies: Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus, SpaceX’s Dragon, JAXA’s HTV, and the Russian Progress.
• Through Expedition 60, the microgravity laboratory has hosted nearly 3,000 research investigations from researchers in more than 108 countries.
• The station’s orbital path takes it over 90 percent of the Earth’s population, with astronauts taking millions of images of the planet below. Check them out at https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov.
• More than 20 different research payloads can be hosted outside the station at once, including Earth sensing equipment, materials science payloads, particle physics experiments like the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 and more.
• The space station travels an equivalent distance to the Moon and back in about a day.
• The Water Recovery System reduces crew dependence on water delivered by a cargo spacecraft by 65 percent – from about 1 gallon a day to a third of a gallon.
• On-orbit software monitors approximately 350,000 sensors, ensuring station and crew health and safety.
• The space station has an internal pressurized volume equal that of a Boeing 747.
• More than 50 computers control the systems on the space station.
• More than 3 million lines of software code on the ground support more than 1.5 million lines of flight software code.
• In the International Space Station’s U.S. segment alone, more than 1.5 million lines of flight software code run on 44 computers communicating via 100 data networks transferring 400,000 signals (e.g. pressure or temperature measurements, valve positions, etc.).

See: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/facts-and-figures

The International Space Station with ESA’s Columbus laboratory flies 400 km high at speeds that defy gravity – literally. At 28 800 km/h it only takes 92 minutes for the weightless laboratory to make a complete circuit of Earth. Astronauts working and living on the Station experience 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. Due to the Station's orbit it appears to travel from west to east over our planet, and due to Earth's own rotation the Space Station's moves 2200 km to the west on each orbit. You can see the International Space Station with your own eyes from where you are by looking up at the right time.
Hartmann352

---

​