The International Space Station

A. The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest and most complex international scientific project in history. The station will represent a move of unprecedented scale off the home planet. The International Space Station draws upon the scientific and technological resources of 16 nations: US, Canada, Japan, Russia, 11 nations of the European Space Agency and Brazil.
B. More than four times as large as the Russian Mir space station, the completed International Space Station will have a mass of about 1, 040, 000 pounds. It will measure 356 feet across and 290 feet long, with almost an acre of solar panels to provide electrical power to six state-of-the-art laboratories.

C. The station will be in an orbit at an altitude of 250 statute miles with an inclination of 51.6 degrees. This orbit allows the station to be reached by the launch vehicles of all the international partners to provide a capability for the delivery of crews and supplies. The orbit also provides excellent Earth observations with coverage of 85 percent of the globe and over flight of 95 percent of the population. By the end of this year, about 500, 000 pounds of station components will be have been built at factories around the world.
D. The international partners, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency, and Russia, will contribute the following key elements to the International Space Station:
- Canada is providing a 55-foot-long robotic arm to be used for assembly and maintenance tasks on the International Space Station.
- The European Space Agency is building a pressurized laboratory to be launched on the Space Shuttle and logistics transport vehicles to be launched on the Ariane 5 launch vehicle.
- Japan is building a laboratory with an attached exposed exterior platform for experiments as well as logistics transport vehicles.
- Russia is providing two research modules; an early living section called the Service Module with its own life support and habitation systems; a science power platform of solar arrays that can supply about 20 kilowatts of electrical power; logistics transport vehicles; and Soyuz spacecraft for crew return.

E. The ISS, when completed, will be essentially made of a set of communicating pressurized modules connected to a truss, on which four large pairs of photovoltaic modules are attached. The pressurized modules and the truss will be perpendicular: the truss spanning from starboard to port and the habitable zone extending on the aft-forward axis.

F. The ISS Environmental Control and Life Support System provides or controls elements such as atmospheric pressure, oxygen levels, water, and fire extinguishing, among other things. The highest priority for the life support system is the ISS atmosphere, but the system also collects, processes, and stores water and waste used and produced by the crew. For example, the system recycles fluid from the sink, shower, and condensation.

G. Currently the ISS consists of only four main pressurized modules; two Russian modules Zarya and Zvezda and two US modules Destiny and Node 1. Zarya was the first module launched by a Proton rocket in November 1998, followed by a shuttle mission that connected Zarya with Node 1, the first of three node modules, 2 weeks after Zarya had been launched.

H. The first phase of the International Space Station, the Shuttle-Mir Program, began in 1995 and involved more than two years of continuous stays by astronauts aboard the Russian Mir Space Station and nine Shuttle-Mir docking missions. Knowledge was gained in technology, international space operations and scientific research. Engineers got knowledge and experience through Shuttle-Mir that could not be achieved any other way. That included valuable experience in international crew training activities; the operation of an international space program; and the challenges of long duration spaceflight for astronauts and ground control. Dealing with the real-time challenges experienced during Shuttle-Mir missions also has resulted in an unprecedented cooperation and trust between the U.S. and Russian space programs, and that cooperation and trust has enhanced the development of the International Space Station.

Comprehension Check