History of International Space Station (ISS)

History of Space Stations

Space station, in simple words, is a laboratory launched into Earth's orbit and is inhabited by human beings. Salyut 1 was the first space station, launched by the Soviet Union, on 19th April, 1971. However, the astronauts could not enter the space station due to some technical problems. Salyut 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 were space stations launched by Soviet Union, after the failure of Salyut 1. Even these space stations faced many technical problems. After the failures of all the Salyut space stations, the Soviet Union was successful in launching the Mir space station in February 1986. Cosmonauts on Mir space station were the first human beings to spend more than a year in orbit. The United States launched its first space station Skylab, in May 1973. The Soviet Union was successfully operating Mir from 1986. A reliable system was developed for transportation of equipment, food and crew members at Mir. Later in 1991, when the Soviet Union was divided, Russia took the charge of Mir. By 2001, Mir was facing major problems and Russia decided to de-orbit it. In March 2001, Mir was taken out of the orbit and it collapsed into the Pacific Ocean.

History of International Space Station (ISS)

In 1984, President of United States Ronald Reagen, put forward a project of a permanent space station 'Freedom.' At that time, the estimated cost of the project was 8 billion dollars. The countries who contributed to this project were: Canada, Japan, Brazil and the European Space Agency - United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden. In 1993, President Bill Clinton, wanted to cancel the space program project, since it was facing a lot of delay and it had overshot the budget. At the same time, the Soviet Union was planning to build their next space station, Mir 2. After the division of Soviet Union, in 1993, Russia and United States came together and renamed the project as International Space Station.

Launching of the ISS Modules

With the help of Mir, American and Russian astronauts did research in space for almost 6 months. The assembly of ISS had to face delays, due to financial problems. The first module of ISS, 'Zarya' (meaning sunrise in Russian), was built by Russia and funded by the US. It was launched from Kazakhstan, in November 1998, by the Proton rocket. US called this unit, the Functional Cargo Block (FCB). Then the second module 'Unity' built by US, was launched in December 1998. The space shuttle that carried Unity was Endeavor. Unity was attached to Zarya. The service module 'Zvezda' (meaning Star in Russian), was launched by the rocket Proton, in July 2000. Zvezda provides quarters for astronauts and cosmonauts to work and live. It also also has the mechanism that adjusts the altitude of the ISS. Further, in October 2000, Discovery (space shuttle) launched more modules, like PMA (Pressurized Mating Adapter) and solar panels. The solar panels generate photovoltaic electricity; while PMAs are used as docking ports for the space shuttles. On October 31, 2000, the first crew was sent on ISS, which was called the Expedition One. The crew members were astronaut William Shepherd (Commander of the crew) and two cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. They conducted experiments and activated systems on ISS, and returned back in March 2001. In February 2001, Destiny Laboratory Module built by the US was carried by the space shuttle Atlantis, to the ISS. Scientific researches started when Destiny was activated. NASA play is playing a major role in building the International Space Station. The assembly of ISS is carried out in the lower Earth orbit.

Following list gives the duration of the crews that landed on ISS:

1. Crew 1 - October 2000 to March 2001
2. Crew 2 - March 2001 to August 2001
3. Crew 3 - August 2001 to December 2001
4. Crew 4 - December 2001 to June 2002
5. Crew 5 - June 2002 to December 2002
6. Crew 6 - November 2002 to May 2003
7. Crew 7 - April 2003 to October 2003
8. Crew 8 - October 2003 to April 2004
9. Crew 9 - April 2004 to October 2004
10. Crew 10 - October 2004 to April 2005
11. Crew 11 - April 2005 to October 2005
12. Crew 12 - September 2005 to April 2006
13. Crew 13 - March 2006 to September 2006
14. Crew 14 - Launched September 2006

Tourists to International Space Station

In April 2001, Dennis Tito, an investment consultant from California, became the first tourist to ISS. Later, in April 2002, Mark Shuttleworth, a South African businessman, was the second tourist to ISS. Both of them were given training for at least 6 months before they traveled to ISS.

Crash of Columbia

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia, broke apart, while entering the Earth's atmosphere. The disaster happened over Texas. All the seven crew members died in this incident. The flights to ISS were halted by NASA, for a some time, to ensure safety of upcoming flights.

The assembly of the International Space Station is planned to be completed by the year 2011. It is the ninth space station and the largest artificial satellite in the Earth's orbit. ISS is visible by naked eyes in the night and it takes 90 minutes to make one revolution around the Earth.