International Space Station

The **International Space Station (ISS)** is a modular research space station (habitable artificial satellite) that was located in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project that involves 5 participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ownership and use of the International Space Station was established by the intergovernmental treaties and agreements. This space station also serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific research was conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields. The ISS was suited for testing the spacecraft systems and equipment required for possible future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.

The International Space Station program was evolved from the Space Station *Freedom*, an American proposal which was conceived in 1984 to construct a permanently manned Earth-orbiting station, and the contemporaneous Soviet/Russian *Mir-2* proposal from 1976 with similar aims. The ISS is also the 9th space station to be inhabited by crew memberss, following the Soviet and later Russian *Salyut*, Almaz, and *Mir* stations and the American Skylab. It was also the largest artificial object in space and the largest satellite in low Earth orbit, regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth's surface. It maintains an orbit with an average altitude of 400 km (250 mi) by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the *Zvezda* Service Module or visiting spacecraft. The International Space Station circles the Earth in roughly 93 minutes, completing 15.5 orbits per day.

The International Space Station was divided into two sections: the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) that was operated by Russia, while the United States Orbital Segment (USOS) was controlled by the United States as well as many other nations. Roscosmos has endorsed the continued operation of ROS through 2024, having previously proposed using elements of the segment to construct a new Russian space station called OPSEK. The first ISS component was launched in 1998, and the first long-term residents arrived on November 2, 2000 after being launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on October 31, 2000 (Halloween). The station has since been continuously occupied for 21 years and 48 days, the longest continuous human presence in low Earth orbit, having surpassed the previous record of 9 years and 357 days held by the *Mir* space station. The latest major pressurised module, *Nauka*, was fitted in 2021, a little over ten years after the previous major addition, *Leonardo* in 2011. Development and assembly of the station continues, with an experimental inflatable space habitat added in 2016, and several major new Russian elements scheduled for launch starting in 2021. In December 2018, the station's operation authorization was extended to 2030, with funding secured until 2025. There have been calls to privatize ISS operations after that point to pursue future Moon and Mars missions, with former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine saying "given our current budget constraints, if we want to go to the moon and we want to go to Mars, we need to commercialize low Earth orbit and go on to the next step."

The ISS also consists of pressurised habitation modules, structural trusses, photovoltaic solar arrays, thermal radiators, docking ports, experiment bays and robotic arms. Major ISS modules have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets and US Space Shuttles. The station is serviced by a variety of visiting spacecraft: the Russian Soyuz and Progress, the SpaceX Dragon 2, and the Northrop Grumman Space Systems Cygnus, and formerly the European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, and SpaceX Dragon 1. The Dragon spacecraft allows the return of pressurised cargo to Earth, which is used, for example, to repatriate scientific experiments for further analysis. As of August 2021, 244 astronauts, cosmonauts, and space tourists from 19 different nations have visited the space station, many of them multiple times; this includes 153 Americans, 50 Russians, 9 Japanese, 8 Canadians, 5 Italians, 4 French, 3 Germans and 1 Brazilian.

In Star Ixiom, the energy refueling stations resembles the International Space Station, instead of the silver Bosconian Bases in Star Luster. These refueling stations that they look like the ISS appears in every planet. But in Conquest Mode, the only times the refueling station was the International Space Station ***ITSELF*** is if you're in Earth.