Today we start a new series covering the largest artificial object in space – International Space Station [ISS]. This will be a multi-part series in which we will cover various technical aspects related to this beautiful habitat in space.
Starting with some interesting facts
- Sixteen nations were involved in the construction of the ISS — The United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
- There are only two bathrooms on the entire station. The urine of both the crewmembers and laboratory animals is filtered back into the station’s drinking water supply, so at least the astronauts will never get thirsty.
- The 52 computers onboard the ISS have been infected by viruses more than once. The first was a worm known as the W32.Gammima.AG, which started spreading by stealing passwords to online video games on Earth.
- The ISS is the largest manned object ever put into space. The ISS has a pressurized volume of 32,333 cubic feet, the same as a Boeing 747. It’s four times larger than the Russian space station MIR and five times larger than the U.S. station Skylab.
- The first ISS component was launched in 1998, with the first long-term residents arriving on 2 November 2000. Since then, the station has been continuously occupied for 19 years and 232 days.
See the ISS, yourself!
Head on to this link – https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ to know when ISS will pass above your location.
It is the third brightest object in the sky and easy to spot if you know when to look up. Visible to the naked eye, it looks like a fast-moving plane only much higher and traveling thousands of miles an hour faster!
