International Space Station

A laboratory and home in orbit, continuously occupied since November 2000.

The International Space Station with its large solar arrays above the blue Earth.
The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft. Credit: NASA. Source, NASA media guidelines.

The International Space Station is the largest structure people have ever built in space. It is a joint project of the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.

Facts

  • It orbits Earth at an altitude of about 400 km and a speed of about 28,000 km/h.
  • It circles Earth about every 90 minutes, so the crew sees 16 sunrises and sunsets a day.
  • People have lived on board continuously since 2 November 2000.
  • Including its solar arrays, it measures about 109 m end to end, roughly the length of a football field.

Life on board

Astronauts usually stay for about six months. They run experiments in biology, medicine, physics and materials science, and they exercise about two hours a day to keep their muscles and bones healthy in weightlessness.

The image above was taken in October 2024 from a departing SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.