The ISS travels at about 17,500 miles/28,000 kilometers per hour. When it comes to living in space, the ISS is larger than a six-bedroom house. The space station has a mass of nearly 1 million pounds. The ISS measures 357 feet or 108 meters from end-to-end, which is about the size of an American football field. The space station orbits Earth at an average altitude of 227 nautical miles/420 kilometers above Earth. The ISS also has robotic arms mounted outside the station. The solar arrays are connected to the station with a long truss, which controls the space station’s temperature. The ISS is constructed of many connected modules called “nodes” connecting the station together. What does the ISS look like? This photo of the ISS was taken in 2018 by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft undocking.Track where the ISS is right now using NASA’s Spot The Station tool. It will also be moving across the sky, similar to an airplane, but without flashing lights. The space station is a symbol of international cooperation that has benefited life back on Earth economically, technologically, scientifically and educationally.Īt dawn or dusk you’ll be able to see the space station with your bare eyes as the third brightest object in the sky. The International Space Station (ISS) is Earth’s only microgravity laboratory that has allowed more than 3,600 researchers in 106 countries to conduct more than 2,500 experiments – and the research continues. What is the International Space Station?.Keep reading below to see the answers to more of the most frequently asked questions about this achievement in science and international cooperation. We want our friends to help us meet these challenges and share in their benefits.” … A space station will permit quantum leaps in our research in science, communications, in metals, and in lifesaving medicines which could be manufactured only in space. As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of humans living and working in space aboard the International Space Station, you may ask, why? Why would humankind live and work in space? President Ronald Reagan answered this question best: “We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain.

International space station inside