««zschhhH!»" > <blink>««zschhhH!»</blink> - <marque><blink>International Space Station</blink></marque> FLAC album

Tracklist

1

1

Ring

0:02

Credits

• Ring – Howard Bell (tracks: 1)

Notes

The International Space Station (ISS) is a joint project of five Space agencies:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (United States)
Russian Federal Space Agency (Russian Federation)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Japan)
Canadian Space Agency (Canada)
European Space Agency (15 of its member states are currently participating; Austria, United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Finland chose not to participate; Greece and Luxembourg joined ESA later).

The Brazilian Space Agency (Brazil) participates through separate contract with NASA. The Italian Space Agency similary has separate contracts for various activities, that are not done in the framework of ESA ISS works (where Italy also fully participates).

The Space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 360 km (220 miles), a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts [1]). It orbits Earth in a period of about 92 minutes; by June 2 005 it had completed more than 37,500 orbits since launch of the Zarya module on November 2 0, 1998.

In many ways the ISS represents a merger of previously planned independent Space stations: Russia's Mir 2 , United States' Space Station Freedom and the planned European Columbus and Japanese Experiment Module. Today it represents a permanent human presence in Space , as it has been manned with a crew of at least two since November 2 , 2 000 (see #ISS Expeditions).

It is serviced primarily by the Space Shuttle, Soyuz and Progress Space craft units. It is still being built, but is home to some experimentation already. At present, the station has a capacity for a crew of three. So far, all members of the expedition crews have come from the Russian or United States Space programs. The ISS has however been visited by many more astronauts, a number of them from other countries (and by three space tourists).