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The first part of the ISS sent to space was the module called Zarya. It was launched into space on a Russian Proton rocket on November 20th, 1998. Zarya provided propulsion, attitude control, communications and electrical power.
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Two weeks later, NASA launched a module called Unity aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, successfully attaching it to the Zarya module. The Unity module was equipped with all the requirements for long-term human living.
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The ISS was built to be a space environment research laboratory and observatory, where crew members could conduct experiments in many scientific fields including: biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, and meteorology.
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The first ISS crew mission called 'Expedition 1' launched on a Russian Soyuz, October 31, 2000. The 3 Russian cosmonauts docked and entered the ISS on November 2nd, 2000. The space station has been continuously occupied since, making it the longest continuous human presence in space.
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The ISS has been visited by astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations. There has been a total of 352 flights to the ISS, by 211 individual people, 31 of these were women, and 7 were 'space tourists' (as of 2013).
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As of 2013, there has been 174 spacewalks outside the modules in support of the ISS's construction and maintenance, that's almost 1,100 hours (nearly 46 days).
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There's been 38 expeditions to the ISS as of 2013. An expedition can last up to six months. Early expeditions had 3 person crews, this was reduced to 2 person crews for safety, however today crew numbers regularly reach 6 people.
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The ISS programme is a joint project that involves 5 space agencies. NASA, of USA, Roskosmos of Russia, JAXA of Japan, CSA of Canada and ESA made up of agencies from France, Brazil, Malaysia, South Korea and Italy.
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With the naked eye, the ISS can be seen from nearly every area of Earth at some point in time, it appears as a slow moving bright white dot in the night sky.
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For more information about how astronauts do everyday tasks in zero gravity on the ISS, see our amazing Astronauts Videos page!
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Space Station Facts |
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