The ISS
The French astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned recently from his six-month
mission in low Earth orbit aboard the ISS, the International Space Station. Here
is a quick overview of its history, features, and mission.
What is the ISS?
The ISS is
the only international space station. The station moves around the Earth in low
orbit at an altitude of between 360 and 400 kilometers and travels around our
planet in ninety minutes.
Sixteen times
a day, it spends 45 minutes in the dark and the following 45 minutes exposed to
the sun.
The habitable
volume of the station is 388 cubic meters. The station is 109 meters long, 73
meters wide, and weighs 419 tons. It’s the most complex and massive object
assembled in space. It is also the most expensive ever manufactured by man. It
is estimated that it cost $150 billion.
What is the ISS used for?
The ISS is
mainly a large scientific laboratory where hundreds of experiments are carried
out.
The Frenchman
Thomas Pesquet, who is the tenth Frenchman to have spent time in space, carried
out a hundred different experiments during the six months of his stay aboard
the station.
His
experiments were mainly to do with health and medicine.
Who pays for the ISS?
The station
is co-managed by five space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia),
ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan) and CSA (Canada) and financed by sixteen countries:
the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Brazil and eleven European countries,
including France.
These 16
countries signed an intergovernmental cooperation agreement on 29th January
1998. Most of the costs are met by NASA.
How many people are permanently in the ISS?
The ISS
permanently hosts 6 people.
Each group of
three astronauts spends six months in the station.
How do I travel to the ISS?
Up to 2011, journeys
to the ISS were by the US Space Shuttle, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida,
or by the Soyuz vessel from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Since 2011, the
only way to reach the ISS is with the Russian Soyuz.
Is there a procedure to get the astronauts back in case something goes
wrong?
In case of
problems, two Russian Soyuz vessels are permanently attached to the
International Space Station. One arrives with the astronauts, the other is used
to return to Earth.
Both vessels
can be used to evacuate the station in the event of a major malfunction.
What will become of the station?
The
International Space Station will remain operational until at least 2024; the
various partners have pledged to finance the program until this date.
With the
advent of private partners such as SpaceX, NASA will be able to progressively
reorient its budget to finance ambitious mid-term projects, such as returning to
the Moon or manned missions to Mars.
To replace
the current International Space Station, the agencies are considering the construction
of a station in a cistern orbit, that is, an orbit around Earth-Moon.
Article by Hugo Abelard
