The International Space Station: 20 Years of Living and Working off the Planet

The International Space Station (ISS) is our preeminent human space flight program today. We started designing ISS in 1984. We began assembling it, in orbit, in 1998.

The amazing design, development and assembly of ISS was accomplished by an international partnership of NASA together with the European, Japanese and Canadian and Russian Space Agencies. This multinational collaboration results in a technological and cultural mix that symbolizes what nations can achieve by working together.

The International Space Station began as a cooperative effort between the United States, Canada, Japan and nations of the European Space Agency, to design and build a large space station housing research laboratories. The laboratories would study the space environment and the effects of the environment on living things, materials, and material processes.

During the space age, first men and then women learned to fly in space. Then the first space stations, like the Russian Salyut and NASA's Skylab were launched into orbit. Then individual modules were assembled to form more advanced Stations like Russia’s Mir Orbital Station (1986).

The station was designed from the outset to be modular. Modularity permitted reconfiguration and maintainability. Modules were sized to be carried to orbit by the US Space Shuttle. Later, Russia joined the International Space Station program and contributed modules based on those used in their successful Mir orbital station.

The first two modules, the Russian Zarya Functional Cargo Module, and the US Unity Node 1, were locked together in 1998.

This high-flying international laboratory is packed with some of the most technologically sophisticated facilities that can support a wide range of scientific inquiry in biology, human physiology, physical and materials sciences, and Earth and space science. There is probably no single place on Earth where you can find such a laboratory—approximately the size of an American football field and having the interior volume of 1.5 Boeing 747 jetliners—with facilities to conduct the breadth of research that can be done aboard the ISS.

The ISS is an unprecedented technological and political achievement in global human endeavors to conceive, plan, build, operate, and utilize a research platform in space. It is the latest step in humankind’s quest to explore and live in space.

As on-orbit assembly of the ISS was completed—including all international partner laboratories and elements—it developed into a unique research facility capable of unraveling the mysteries of life on Earth. We can use the ISS as a human-tended laboratory in low-Earth orbit to conduct multidiscipline research in biology and biotechnology, materials and physical science, technology advancement and development, and research on the effects of long-duration space flight on the human body. The results of the research completed on the ISS may be applied to various areas of science, enabling us to improve life on this planet and giving us the experience and increased understanding to journey to other worlds.

The ISS has had a continuous human presence since November 2, 2000. The flight systems provide a safe, comfortable, and livable environment in which crew members can perform scientific research. These flight systems include habitation accommodations, environmental controls, medical and health support, and computing and data management.

To this day, 241 individuals from 19 countries have visited the International Space Station. An international crew of six live and work aboard the ISS. Between December 1998 and March 2019, over 4,200 investigators representing more than 100 countries and counting carried out almost 3,000 completed and ongoing investigations.

The ISS is the most complex engineering and construction project of all time and ranks among the most historic wonders of mankind — and this is just the beginning!

ISS is a prototype of a vehicle that could carry people to another planet. A spacecraft designed to carry people on a months long mission to another planet will require many of the same systems as are being tested on the ISS.

The 20 years of continued human presence on the ISS have set the stage for our future in space. The International Space Station will continue to serve as the world’s leading laboratory where researchers can conduct cutting-edge research and technology development to enable human and robotic exploration of the Moon and Mars. The space station will also facilitate the growth of additional privately owned spaceships for continued research and transportation in low-Earth orbit.