Have you ever wondered a fast-moving plane in the sky, as a steady – not blinking – white pinpoint of light? Typically the brightest object in the night sky (except for the Moon) bright enough that it can even be seen from the middle of a city!


That’s the humanity's home in Earth’s orbit -- The International Space Station.


Source: Wikipedia

As the name suggests, International Space Station (ISS) is a space station (habitable artificial satellite) in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe),and CSA (Canada).The purpose was intended to be a laboratory ,observatory and a staging base for possible future missions to the Moon, Mars and asteroids. In the 2010 United States National Space Policy, the ISS was given additional roles of serving commercial, diplomatic and educational purposes. The ISS simplifies experiments by allowing groups of experiments to share the same launches and crew time. Research is conducted in a wide variety of fields including astrobiology, astronomy, physical sciences, material sciences space weather and human research including space medicine and the life sciences.

Construction and Structure

One could never thought of such a habitable station in space if we talk about this idea decades before but this was made possible. Zarya, the first ISS module, was launched by a Proton rocket on 20 November 1998.Zarya also known as the Functional Cargo Block or FGB is the first module of ISS which provided electrical power, storage and guidance to the ISS during the initial stage of assembly. Proton (rocket) is an expendable launch system used for both commercial and Russian government space launches. Mainly the ISS consists of pressurized habitation modules, structural trusses (a framework supporting roof, or other structures), photovoltaic solar arrays, thermal radiators, docking ports, and robotic arms.

Freefall

Gravity at the altitude of the ISS is approximately 90% as strong as at Earth’s surface, but objects in orbit are in a continuous state of freefall, resulting in an apparent state of weightlessness.

Source: kW SPACE TV


Educational outreach

The ISS crew provides opportunities for students on Earth by running student –developed experiments, making educational demonstrations, and directly engaging students in classroom versions of the ISS experiments using radio, videolink and email

Life aboard

The critical systems are the atmosphere control system, the water supply system, the food supply facilities, the sanitation and hygiene equipment and the fire detection and suppression equipment. The time zone used at ISS is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).The windows are covered at night hours to create darkness because the station experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets per day. A typical day for the crew begins with a wake-up at 6:00, followed by post-sleep activities and a morning inspection of the station. The crew takes part in a daily planning conference with Mission Control before starting work at around 08:10.Most of the food aboard is vacuum sealed in plastic bags; cans are rare because they are heavy and expensive to transport. A study of the longest spaceflight concluded that the first three weeks are a critical period to adjust to the extreme change of environment. ISS crew flights typically last about five to six months.

Astronaut Jessica Meir Earth from ISS Cupola

Sleeping quarters on ISS Source: Reddit

Food in space Source: MentalFloss


Cost

The ISS has been described as the most expensive single item ever constructed. As of 2010 the total cost was US$150 billion.

Operations

Soyuz TM-31 was the first spacecraft to dock with the ISS. This Soyuz TM spacecraft carried the members of Expedition 1, the first long-duration ISS crew. Expedition 64 is the latest expedition to ISS. Travellers who pay for their own passage into space are termed spaceflight participants. A wide variety of crewed and unscrewed spacecraft have supported the station’s activities. As of 9April 2020,240 people from 19 countries had visited the space station as crewed spacecrafts, many of them multiple times whereas unscrewed spaceflights to the ISS are made primarily to deliver cargo .Unexpected problems and failures generally occur. Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs) are spare parts that can be readily replaced when a unit either passes its design life or fails.

Recently a SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying four astronauts docked with the International Space Station. So presently there are 7 people aboard. The crew comprises of three Americans -- Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker -- and Japan's Soichi Noguchi who joined on board are NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, who have been living on the orbiting lab since October 2020. So presently there are 7 people aboard. SpaceX briefly transmitted live images from inside the capsule showing the astronauts in their seats, something neither the Russians nor the Americans had done before. US President-elect Joe Biden hailed the launch on Twitter as a "testament to the power of science and what we can accomplish by harnessing our innovation, ingenuity, and determination," while President Donald Trump called it "great". Vice President Mike Pence, who attended the launch with his wife Karen, called it a "new era in human space exploration in America."

SpaceXCrew-1 mission

Source: techcrunch.com

So from here we can say that the dream of many space lovers and enthusiasts around the world to visit and explore space themselves is not just now a dream. It has now become a reality. The only thing one requires to fulfil his/her dreams is own perseverance, determination and hard work.