Is the era of the International Space Station ISS coming to an end?

While the divide between Russia and the West is getting worse in almost all areas from politics , economics, climate to culture and sports, there is still a rare bright spot of cooperation between the two sides. That is the formation and operation of the International Space Station (ISS), the most expensive space science project in history with the participation of many countries.

Image of the International Space Station ISS in 2021 (Source: Shutterstock)

On November 20 and December 4, 1998, two modules named Zarya of Russia and Unity of the United States were launched into orbit as the first two components of the ISS. By August 2024, there were 277 people from 21 countries working here.

However, the ISS participants agreed to end the ISS's operations before January 2031. There is still a long way to go until then. To serve the lives and research of international astronauts on the Station, on August 15, Russia's Progress MS-28 cargo spacecraft continued to be launched to dock with the ISS.

Who owns the ISS?

According to Russia Beyond, there are currently 17 countries participating in the ISS project: Russia, the US, Canada, Japan and 13 members of the European Space Agency (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Hungary and Luxembourg). Five space agencies participating in operating the ISS are: Roscosmos (Russia), NASA (US), CSA (Canada), ESA (European countries) and JAXA (Japan). NASA is the representative managing activities on the station.

The management and operation of the ISS is divided among the participants according to international agreements. The Russian ISS is managed at the Flight Control Center in Korolev, the American segment in Texas, the European experimental module Columbus in Germany and the Japanese experimental module Kibo in Tsukuba.

In 2021, Russia announced that it would withdraw from the project after 2024. The then head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that about 80% of Russia's ISS system equipment had reached the end of its useful life and that maintenance costs after 2025 would be equivalent to the cost of creating a new station. However, at the end of 2023, the new head of Roscosmos, Iury Boricov, informed that Russia had decided to extend the operation of the Russian-run segment until 2028.

Special mission

As early as the 1980s, during the Cold War, the United States had developed an international space station project with the participation of Japan, Canada and Europe, but it had not achieved results due to costs and experience. By the early 1990s, these countries began to attract the participation of Russia, which had suspended the development of the Mir-2 orbital station due to financial difficulties.

The ISS was created to replace the Soviet Mir station (in space from 1986 to 2001). The idea of ​​​​creating an international station began in 1993, when Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and US Vice President Al Gore signed a space cooperation agreement. The official name also appeared - International Space Station. In 1996, the station's composition was established, including two main structures of Russia and the United States (with the participation of other countries).

The agreement to establish the ISS was signed in Washington on January 29, 1998. On November 20, 1998, construction began in orbit and the first module, the Russian Zarya, was launched and on December 7, the American Unity module was docked. These two modules formed the core of the ISS.

From December 4 to December 15, 1998, the space shuttle Endeavour performed a special mission, in which the spacecraft's hatch successfully docked with the ISS for the first time on December 10. The first short-term residents of the station were Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and American astronaut Robert Cabana, who later headed the Kennedy Space Center.

From 1 to 71

On November 2, 2000, the first long-duration crew was launched from Baikonur (Kazakhstan) to the ISS (ISS-1). American cosmonaut William Shepherd and Russians Sergei Krikalev and Yury Gidzenko spent 136 days on the ISS. This mission began the era of continuous astronaut presence on the ISS.

The second crew, consisting of one Russian and two Americans (ISS-2), worked at the Station from March 8 to August 22, 2001, receiving three shuttles carrying equipment and cargo modules, and also welcoming the crew of the Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft along with the first space tourist , American millionaire businessman Dennis Tito. The crew of the first five research missions consisted of three people, then from the sixth to the twelfth missions, two people. In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia crashed 63 km from Earth, killing the entire crew of seven. Experts believe that the cause of the accident was a crack in the insulation on the edge of the shuttle's left wing.

Due to this disaster, the use of the space shuttle was suspended, with only the Russian Progress spacecraft delivering cargo and supplies to the Station. Since the 13th expedition in 2005, the American space shuttle has been used again and the crew has increased to three people. Since the 20th expedition, the crew has increased to six people, with three crew members changing every few months.

From ISS-22 to ISS-62, astronaut rotations took place only with the help of Soyuz spacecraft. Since 2020, crews have been transported to the station on American SpaceX Crew Dragon ships.

The ISS 71 mission began on April 6 and will end in September 2024. The crew consists of three Russian explorers and four Americans, two of whom have been working at the ISS since September 2023. The rest arrived at the ISS on different Russian (Soyuz 24, 25) and American (SpaceX Crew-8) spacecraft. The crew was joined on June 6 by two NASA astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, on the newest Starliner spacecraft built by Boeing.

According to the plan, these two people will stay on the ISS for a week, then return to Earth with Starliner. However, according to the US press, there was a problem with the engine and a helium leak on this experimental spacecraft, so they will only return to Earth in September 2024 on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and Starliner will be considered later.

The crew on the first long-duration research mission. (Source: NASA)

Continuous improvement

The orbital speed is 7.66 km/s, or about 27,600 km/h. The ISS orbits the Earth 16 times a day, a complete rotation takes 90 minutes, so the crew can observe sunrises and sunsets every 45 minutes. High speed is needed to overcome gravity. The average orbital altitude is 408 km above sea level. The dimensions of the ISS are 108.4 x 74 m, and the weight is about 420 tons. It can be compared to a 30-story building.

The ISS is in orbit so that 90% of the Earth's population can see it. The station is visible to the naked eye from Earth, shining like a star reflecting sunlight and looking like a fast-moving airplane. The ISS is the third brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus.

Before the ISS, in the mid-1980s, the docking procedure for spacecraft with the Soviet Mir space station took about two days. At that time, the spacecraft made 34 orbits around Earth in 50 hours, allowing time for the crew to adjust to weightlessness. By 2013, spacecraft only needed to make four orbits around Earth in six hours to docking with the ISS. In 2020, Russia's Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft set a record for delivering a crew to the ISS in 3 hours and 3 minutes. In 2021, Roscosmos said it plans to implement a single-orbit scheme, according to which the journey to the ISS will be only 1.5 to 2 hours.

Interesting numbers

Transporting cargo to the ISS is expensive. According to the BBC, in 2001, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachov received a 6-inch pizza. To get this pizza to the ISS, Pizza Hut had to pay the Russian Space Agency about $1 million. In return, they received "footage of Mr. Usachov giving a thumbs-up after eating the pizza" and a Pizza Hut logo placed on a Russian proton rocket.

The space station is the most expensive object ever built by mankind, costing around $150 billion and the same amount to maintain. The ISS has a so-called immortality disc, which stores the digitized DNA of famous people.

Astronauts on the station lose bone mass at a faster rate, so they need to exercise two hours a day. The ISS's living and working spaces include six bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym, and bay windows with 360-degree views. The astronauts and cosmonauts on board have taken more than 3.5 million pictures of Earth from space. Eight spacecraft can dock with the station at the same time. More than 50 computers are used to control the ISS.

The ISS has been operating continuously for nearly 26 years and will be returned to Earth in 2031. Experts have considered several options to end the ISS era. The option of dismantling the 420-ton ISS is considered unfeasible because the process is expensive and requires astronauts to go into space many times. On July 31, NASA decided to allocate more than 840 million USD to SpaceX to end the glorious history of the ISS. Billionaire Elon Musk's company will design a new Dragon spacecraft with 46 engines and more than 16,000 kg of fuel, to bring the ISS to the "space graveyard" in the Pacific Ocean.

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