Today , November 2 , marks two decades of continuous human comportment aboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) in low-pitched - Earth orbit . Astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev flew into blank space onOctober 31 , 2000 , reaching the orbiting laboratory two years afterwards .
The last 20 yr have been an incredible achievement in terms of human endeavors and scientific inquiry . There have been 244 masses from 19 different country in the space post , several of whom have chit-chat multiple times . So far , over3,000 scientific investigationshave been conducted on the ISS by scientist from 108 res publica . At any given fourth dimension , there are about 250 experiment going on .
The ISS is the collaborative attempt of 15 state and took 42 assembly outer space flights to build , 37 of which were with the now - retired Space Shuttle program . The space place ’s truss distance measures 109 meters ( 357.5 feet ) and its mass is 419,725 kilo ( 925,335 pounds ) . It is located at an EL of about 410 klick ( 254 knot ) from the terra firma .
At that elevation , the gravitational twist of the Earth is about 90 percent of what we experience on the land . Astronauts and cosmonauts be adrift because they are in freefall . The ISS move at 7.66 kilometers per second ( 17,100 mile per hour ) around the Earth , so it is constantly falling towards our planet , but also invariably missing . This move creates what it is jazz as microgravity .
The space place , while it still has much to give , is showing its age . TheRussian O supply systemrecently strike a snag , and NASA is lento exchange all the batteries , a process that start out back in January 2017 .
There are also more exciting architectural plan beyond TLC for the ISS . NASA and its Russian counterpart Roscosmos are plan more year - long flight . The last one had Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko in space for 340 day , from March 2015 to March 2016 . The longest after that wasChristina Koch ’s 328 - day residency , but this was due to a last - hour extension rather than a plan .
There are also word to have infinite tourists see the ISS , as well as aTom Cruisemovie andreality tv set showcontestants . There have also been conversations about leaving some of the running game of the blank station to individual troupe as the stress of NASA shifts towards the Moon .
Fundings for continuous human comportment in infinite have been guaranteed forthe next 10 . Hopefully , when it add up to go to sleep the ISS , we will have the proposed place , the Lunar Gateway , around the Moon .
