International Space Station: 7 facts you must know

New Delhi, June 15: ISRO has announced that it would be launching a space station by 2030. It left many surprised, but with first manned mission Gaganyaan set to take-off by 2022, a space station seems like only a logical extension to the program. With India set to work towards building its own space station, its worth knowing more about the International Space Station (ISS), which is at present, the only fully functioning space station that is orbiting the earth.

Russia was the first to place a space station. The first space station was Salyut 1, which was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. At present, one fully functioning space station is orbiting the earth and that is the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is the ninth space station to be inhabited by crews, following the Soviet and later Russian Salyut, Almaz, and Mir stations as well as Skylab from the US. The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The ISS is the largest human-made body in low Earth orbit. Its first component was launched into orbit in 1998, with the first long-term residents arriving in November 2000.

Here are some interesting facts about the International Space Station (ISS):