60 Fun Facts About International Space Station

The International Space Station is operated by how many national or regional space agencies?

NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and Canada's CSA, spanning fifteen countries in the most legally complex space programme in history.

The ISS has been continuously inhabited since the arrival of Expedition 1 in which year?

That is the longest continuous human presence in space; the first module had gone up two years earlier.

Roughly how high above Earth does the ISS orbit?

That keeps it below the Van Allen radiation belts and most space debris; the orbit still decays and needs regular reboosts.

How long does the ISS take to complete one orbit of Earth?

It circles the planet 15.5 times a day at 7.67 km/s, so the crew sees a sunrise or sunset roughly every 45 minutes.

Including its solar arrays, the ISS is about as large as what?

It measures 109 by 73 metres, with a pressurised volume comparable to a Boeing 747.

The ISS merged plans for the Soviet Mir-2 with a planned American outpost named what?

The Zvezda module was actually built in 1985 as a Mir-2 component before the two projects were combined.

The first ISS module, Zarya, was launched on 20 November 1998 aboard which rocket?

Zarya means 'sunrise'; it was funded by the US and by the 2010s served mainly as storage.

Which Space Shuttle carried the American Unity node up to join Zarya in December 1998?

Unity, or Node 1, was built of steel by Boeing at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Russian service module Zvezda, which provided the first living quarters, has a name meaning what?

It docked to Zarya in July 2000 and became the third component of the ISS.

Expedition 1's commander, Bill Shepherd, had previously served in which elite military unit?

Russia questioned his selection because his three earlier shuttle flights totalled only about two weeks in space.

The Expedition 1 crew launched from Baikonur on 31 October 2000 using which historic pad?

Yuri Gagarin had launched from the same pad in 1961; the crew stayed aboard 136 days.

The ISS lab Destiny was NASA's first permanent orbital research facility since which station was vacated in 1974?

Atlantis delivered it on STS-98 in February 2001 and it was berthed to Unity's forward port.

Which country contributed the Kibō laboratory, the largest single pressurised module on the ISS?

Its name means 'hope'; it was built at Tsukuba Space Center and assembled over three shuttle flights in 2008 and 2009.

The Columbus laboratory, ESA's largest contribution to the ISS, was built in which country?

Along with Harmony and Tranquility, the pressure shell work was done by Thales Alenia Space in Turin.

Which module, named from the Italian for 'dome', gives astronauts a seven-window view of Earth?

A shuttle delivered it in February 2010; its 80 cm central window is the largest ever flown in space.

Which ISS storage module, delivered on Discovery's final flight in 2011, is named after an Italian polymath?

It had been a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module ferried back and forth before being left permanently attached.

Which company built the experimental expandable module BEAM, attached to the ISS in 2016?

Its founder had bought NASA's cancelled TransHab inflatable patents; British astronaut Tim Peake plucked BEAM from a Dragon's trunk with Canadarm2.

Russia's Nauka module docked in July 2021, replacing which module that was deorbited to make room?

Nauka arrived with the European Robotic Arm, which can walk itself around the Russian segment.

Canadarm2, the station's main robotic arm, can move around the outside of the ISS how?

It is 17.6 metres long with seven joints and can also ride the Mobile Base System along the main truss.

Dextre, the two-armed robotic 'hand' that works with Canadarm2, was contributed by which country?

It has power tools, lights and video for swapping out orbital replacement units so astronauts spacewalk less.

Robonaut 2, the humanoid robot delivered to the ISS in 2011, later received what upgrade in 2014?

It flew up on the last flight of Discovery, STS-133.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, fixed to the station's truss in 2011, mainly hunts for what?

NASA has called the particle-physics experiment as important as the Hubble Space Telescope.

The station's toilets use what to move waste away from the body in the absence of gravity?

Urine is diverted to the Water Recovery System and turned back into drinking water; there are three toilets, in Zvezda, Tranquility and Nauka.

The station's Elektron unit makes breathable oxygen by doing what?

The hydrogen by-product is vented overboard; solid-fuel generators and stored tanks provide backup.

To limit bone and muscle loss, each ISS crew member must exercise for at least how long every day?

The kit includes two treadmills, one nicknamed COLBERT, and the ARED resistance machine.

Sleeping quarters on the ISS are best described as what?

Each has a sleeping bag, reading lamp and personal storage; the station has seven of them plus three bathrooms and two dining areas.

Seen from the ground, the sunlit ISS can shine as bright as which planet, around magnitude −4?

It is the brightest artificial object in the sky, visible as a moving white dot in twilight.

The ISS's 51.6-degree inclination was chosen so that Soyuz launches from Baikonur would avoid what?

It is the lowest inclination reachable from the 46° N cosmodrome without dropping spent stages on inhabited areas.

Which crewed vehicle has made the most flights to the ISS?

By 2026 the tally was 73 Soyuz, 52 Dragon, 37 Shuttle and 2 Starliner missions, plus 95 uncrewed Progress freighters.

Dennis Tito became the first self-funded ISS visitor in 2001 after paying about how much?

NASA resisted training him; he flew on Soyuz TM-32 and spent nearly eight days in orbit.

Which cosmonaut holds the record for the most cumulative time in space, with nearly 1,111 days?

His nearly 1,111 days came over five long-duration ISS missions.

Which American has spent the most cumulative time in space and was the first woman to command the ISS?

She commanded Expedition 16 in 2007-08, commanded again in 2017 and later flew for Axiom Space.

Frank Rubio's 2023 American record for the longest single spaceflight is nearly how many days?

The Army flight surgeon's stay was extended after his Soyuz sprang a coolant leak.

Christina Koch's record 328-day mission in 2019-20 included which milestone?

She and Jessica Meir made the walk on 18 October 2019 and did two more that January.

Scott Kelly's year on the ISS in 2015-16 was studied alongside his identical twin Mark, who stayed where?

The Twins Study found lasting changes in DNA and cognition; Kelly flew with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko.

Which David Bowie song did commander Chris Hadfield perform in a 2013 video aboard the ISS?

The first Canadian to command the station released it on YouTube after handing over command; it has passed 56 million views.

In 2007 Sunita Williams ran the first marathon in orbit. Which race did she complete?

She was an official entrant and finished in 4 hours 24 minutes while orbiting.

Williams and Wilmore's eight-day 2024 Starliner test flight stretched to more than how long?

They finally came home in March 2025 on a Crew-9 Dragon that had launched with two empty seats.

Which crops had been grown on the ISS by 2023?

The list included three lettuces, Chinese cabbage, mizuna mustard and red Russian kale.

Bacteria of which hardy species were found in 2020 to have survived three years outside the ISS?

The result lent support to panspermia, the idea that life can travel between worlds on dust or rock.

Which company won NASA's 2024 contract, to build the vehicle that will deorbit the ISS?

The plan is to bring the station down into a remote South Pacific 'spacecraft cemetery' at the end of its life.

Under NASA's 2022 extension, the ISS was to operate until the end of which year?

Parts were meant to feed Axiom Station and a Russian successor, though a 2026 push in Congress favoured parking it in a higher orbit instead.

By early 2026, roughly how many people from 26 countries had visited the ISS?

The count of 294 includes both government astronauts and privately funded participants.

What was Expedition 1 flight engineer Sergei Krikalev the first person to do?

He had already spent over a year in orbit, mostly on Mir, before the mission.

In 2025, which was the only operational crewed space station other than the ISS?

China's station flies separately; US law bars NASA from cooperating with China without approval from the FBI and Congress.

The station's Harmony node, launched in 2007, connects which three laboratories?

Node 2 sits at the front of Destiny and carries the docking adapters used by Crew Dragon and Starliner.

How many times a day does the ISS circle the Earth?

Travelling at 7.67 km/s, it completes an orbit roughly every 93 minutes at about 400 km altitude.

The Russian-built Zarya module is owned by which country?

Its name means Sunrise, and it descends from the TKS spacecraft of the Salyut program.

Zvezda, core of the Russian segment, was originally manufactured in 1985 as part of which station?

That successor to Mir was never launched, and the module finally flew to the ISS in July 2000.

The Quest airlock, launched aboard Atlantis in July 2001, was built by which company?

It can support two American EMU suits, two Russian Orlan suits or one of each at the same time.

The Harmony, Tranquility and Columbus modules were all built in which Italian city?

Thales Alenia Space constructed them; Columbus's equipment and software came from EADS in Bremen.

Which module has a two-hatch design change after Mir's dangerous outward-opening airlock hatch?

Its inward-opening hatches cannot fly open if a little air pressure remains in the airlock.

The Rassvet module was delivered by Atlantis in 2010 in exchange for what earlier Russian favour?

Rassvet, meaning 'first light', was attached to Zarya soon after arriving on STS-132.

How long is the ISS's Integrated Truss Structure, which carries the main solar arrays and radiators?

It is made of ten separate segments and hosts the Mobile Servicing System with Canadarm2.

The commercially funded Bishop Airlock, launched in December 2020, was built by which company with partners?

It deploys CubeSats and external payloads and arrived on the SpaceX CRS-21 cargo flight.

Which Airbus-built external payload platform was attached to the Columbus module in 2020?

It added 12 external payload slots to the eight on the ExPRESS carriers, ten on Kibō and four on Columbus.

Which Russian module, meaning 'pier', added six docking ports when it arrived in November 2021?

The four-tonne spherical hub serves Soyuz and Progress craft and possible future modules.

What is the mass of Canadarm2, the station's largest robotic arm?

It docks visiting spacecraft, holds crew during spacewalks and carries Dextre to its jobs.

What are the two Russian cargo cranes used by cosmonauts on spacewalks called?

The name means 'Arrow'; unlike the US segment, Russian modules dock automatically and need no manipulator arm.

Which module in the US segment houses the Oxygen Generating System?

Built by Boeing and attached in February 2001, it is the primary lab for American experiments.