International Space Station
- The International Space Station is the largest modular space station in low Earth orbit. The project involves five space agencies: the United States’ NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos, Japan’s JAXA, Europe’s ESA, and Canada’s CSA.
- The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000.
- An international crew of seven people live and work while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes. Sometimes more are aboard the station during a crew handover.
- In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets.
- Peggy Whitson set the U.S. record for spending the most total time living and working in space at 665 days on Sept. 2, 2017.
- The living and working space in the station is larger than a six-bedroom house (and has six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym, and a 360-degree view bay window).
- To mitigate the loss of muscle and bone mass in the human body in microgravity, the astronauts work out at least two hours a day.
- Astronauts and cosmonauts regularly conduct spacewalks for space station construction, maintenance and upgrades.
- Eight spaceships can be connected to the space station at once.
Quesst
- Quesst is NASA’s mission to demonstrate how the X-59 can fly supersonic without generating loud sonic booms and then survey what people hear when it flies overhead.
- Reaction to the quieter sonic “thumps” will be shared with regulators who will then consider writing new sound-based rules to lift the ban on faster-than-sound flight over land.
- FIRST FLIGHT- 2024
