The International Space Station
The International Space Station is a modular laboratory assembled in low Earth orbit from 1998 by the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. Inhabited by rotating international crews since November 2000, it serves as a shared platform for scientific research and the foundation of long-duration spaceflight experience.
Events
Zarya, the First Module
On 20 November 1998 a Russian Proton rocket launched Zarya, the first module of the International Space Station, from Baikonur. Built by Russia with United States funding, Zarya provided power, propulsion, and guidance for the station during its first years in orbit.
Location: Baikonur, Kazakhstan
Assembly Begins in Orbit
On 6 December 1998 the crew of space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-88 attached the American Unity node to Zarya in orbit, the first assembly step of the station. The project was built under intergovernmental agreements among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the member states of the European Space Agency.
Location: Low Earth orbit
Zvezda Service Module
Russia's Zvezda service module docked with the station on 26 July 2000, adding life support systems, living quarters, flight control, and communications. With Zvezda in place the station could sustain a resident crew.
Location: Low Earth orbit
Continuous Human Habitation Begins
On 2 November 2000 Expedition 1, American astronaut William Shepherd with Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, arrived aboard Soyuz TM-31. Continuous human habitation of the station began that day, with resident crews rotating on expeditions in the years that followed.
Location: Low Earth orbit
International Laboratories Join the Station
In February 2008 the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory was attached to the station, followed in March by the first element of Japan's Kibo laboratory. The additions turned the station into a shared research facility operated across the partner agencies, with national laboratories conducting experiments in microgravity.
Location: Low Earth orbit
The Space Shuttle Program Ends
The final shuttle mission, STS-135, landed on 21 July 2011, closing a program that had flown for thirty years and carried many of the station's heaviest elements. With the shuttle retired, crews reached the station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft until new American crew vehicles entered service.
Location: Cape Canaveral, United States
Commercial Crew Restores American Access
On 30 May 2020 SpaceX's Crew Dragon carried astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the station on the Demo-2 mission, the first crewed orbital launch from the United States since 2011 and the first by a private company. The flight opened NASA's Commercial Crew era, in which routine crew transport to the station was conducted by commercial vehicles.
Location: Cape Canaveral, United States
The First Fully Private Crew Mission
In April 2022 the Axiom Mission 1 crew, former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria with three private astronauts, visited the station for seventeen days. It was the first fully private crewed mission to the orbital laboratory and opened commercially operated visits alongside the government research program.
Location: Low Earth orbit