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International Space Station programme

February 19, 2023

The International Space Station programme is tied together by a complex set of legal, political and financial agreements between the fifteen nations involved in the project, governing ownership of the various components, rights to crewing and utilisation, and responsibilities for crew rotation and resupply of the International Space Station. It was conceived in September 1993 by the United States and Russia after 1980s plans for separate American (Freedom) and Soviet (Mir-2) space stations failed due to budgetary reasons.[2] These agreements tie together the five space agencies and their respective International Space Station programmes and govern how they interact with each other on a daily basis to maintain station operations, from traffic control of spacecraft to and from the station, to utilisation of space and crew time. In March 2010, the International Space Station Program Managers from each of the five partner agencies were presented with Aviation Week's Laureate Award in the Space category,[3] and the ISS programme was awarded the 2009 Collier Trophy.

International Space Station programme
Program overview
Organisation
Manager
  • CSA: Pierre Jean
  • ESA: Bernardo Patti
  • JAXA: Yoshiyuki Hasegawa
  • NASA: Joel Montalbano (2020–present)[1]
  • Roscosmos: Alexey Krasnov
StatusActive
Programme history
Cost$150 billion (2010)
Duration1983–present[2]
First flightZarya
November 20, 1998
First crewed flightSTS-88
December 4, 1998
Launch site(s)
Vehicle information
Uncrewed vehicle(s)
Crewed vehicle(s)
Crew capacity
  • ISS: 7
  • Soyuz: 3
  • Crew Dragon: 4
Launch vehicle(s)

History and conception

In the early 1980s, NASA planned to launch a modular space station called Freedom as a counterpart to the Soviet Salyut and Mir space stations. In 1984 the ESA was invited to participate in Space Station Freedom, and the ESA approved the Columbus laboratory by 1987.[4] The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), or Kibō, was announced in 1985, as part of the Freedom space station in response to a NASA request in 1982.

In early 1985, science ministers from the European Space Agency (ESA) countries approved the Columbus programme, the most ambitious effort in space undertaken by that organisation at the time. The plan spearheaded by Germany and Italy included a module which would be attached to Freedom, and with the capability to evolve into a full-fledged European orbital outpost before the end of the century. The space station was also going to tie the emerging European and Japanese national space programmes closer to the US-led project, thereby preventing those nations from becoming major, independent competitors too.[5]

In September 1993, American Vice-President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, which eventually became the International Space Station.[6] They also agreed, in preparation for this new project, that the United States would be involved in the Mir programme, including American Shuttles docking, in the Shuttle–Mir programme.[7]

On 12 April 2021, at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, then-Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov announced he had decided that Russia might withdraw from the ISS programme in 2025.[8][9] According to Russian authorities, the timeframe of the station’s operations has expired and its condition leaves much to be desired.[8] On 26 July 2022, Borisov, who had become head of Roscosmos, submitted to Putin his plans for withdrawal from the programme after 2024.[10] However, Robyn Gatens, the NASA official in charge of space station operations, responded that NASA had not received any formal notices from Roscosmos concerning withdrawal plans.[11] On 21 September 2022, Borisov stated that Russia was "highly likely" to continue to participate in the ISS programme until 2028.[12]

1998 agreement

 
A commemorative plaque honouring Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement signed on January 29, 1998

The legal structure that regulates the station is multi-layered. The primary layer establishing obligations and rights between the ISS partners is the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), an international treaty signed on January 28, 1998 by fifteen governments involved in the space station project. The ISS consists of Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States, and eleven Member States of the European Space Agency (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom).[13] Article 1 outlines its purpose:

This Agreement is a long term international co-operative framework on the basis of genuine partnership, for the detailed design, development, operation, and utilization of a permanently inhabited civil Space Station for peaceful purposes, in accordance with international law.[14]

The IGA sets the stage for a second layer of agreements between the partners referred to as 'Memoranda of Understanding' (MOUs), of which four exist between NASA and each of the four other partners. There are no MOUs between ESA, Roskosmos, CSA and JAXA because NASA is the designated manager of the ISS. The MOUs are used to describe the roles and responsibilities of the partners in more detail.

A third layer consists of bartered contractual agreements or the trading of the partners' rights and duties, including the 2005 commercial framework agreement between NASA and Roscosmos that sets forth the terms and conditions under which NASA purchases seats on Soyuz crew transporters and cargo capacity on uncrewed Progress transporters.

A fourth legal layer of agreements implements and supplements the four MOUs further. Notably among them is the ISS code of conduct made in 2000, setting out criminal jurisdiction, anti-harassment and certain other behavior rules for ISS crewmembers.[15]

Programme operations

Expeditions

This section is an excerpt from International Space Station § Expeditions.[edit]
 
Zarya and Unity were entered for the first time on 10 December 1998.
 
Soyuz TM-31 being prepared to bring the first resident crew to the station in October 2000
Each permanent crew is given an expedition number. Expeditions run up to six months, from launch until undocking, an 'increment' covers the same time period, but includes cargo spacecraft and all activities. Expeditions 1 to 6 consisted of three-person crews. Expeditions 7 to 12 were reduced to the safe minimum of two following the destruction of the NASA Shuttle Columbia. From Expedition 13 the crew gradually increased to six around 2010.[16][17] With the arrival of crew on US commercial vehicles beginning in 2020,[18] NASA has indicated that expedition size may be increased to seven crew members, the number ISS was originally designed for.[19][20]

Private flights

This section is an excerpt from International Space Station § Private flights.[edit]

Travellers who pay for their own passage into space are termed spaceflight participants by Roscosmos and NASA, and are sometimes referred to as "space tourists", a term they generally dislike.[a] As of 2021, seven space tourists have visited the ISS; all seven were transported to the ISS on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. When professional crews change over in numbers not divisible by the three seats in a Soyuz, and a short-stay crewmember is not sent, the spare seat is sold by MirCorp through Space Adventures. Space tourism was halted in 2011 when the Space Shuttle was retired and the station's crew size was reduced to six, as the partners relied on Russian transport seats for access to the station. Soyuz flight schedules increased after 2013, allowing five Soyuz flights (15 seats) with only two expeditions (12 seats) required.[28] The remaining seats were to be sold for around US$40 million to members of the public who could pass a medical exam. ESA and NASA criticised private spaceflight at the beginning of the ISS, and NASA initially resisted training Dennis Tito, the first person to pay for his own passage to the ISS.[b]

Anousheh Ansari became the first self-funded woman to fly to the ISS as well as the first Iranian in space. Officials reported that her education and experience made her much more than a tourist, and her performance in training had been "excellent."[29] She did Russian and European studies involving medicine and microbiology during her 10-day stay. The 2009 documentary Space Tourists follows her journey to the station, where she fulfilled "an age-old dream of man: to leave our planet as a 'normal person' and travel into outer space."[30]

In 2008, spaceflight participant Richard Garriott placed a geocache aboard the ISS during his flight.[31] This is currently the only non-terrestrial geocache in existence.[32] At the same time, the Immortality Drive, an electronic record of eight digitised human DNA sequences, was placed aboard the ISS.[33]

Fleet operations

This section is an excerpt from International Space Station § Fleet operations.[edit]
 
Dragon and Cygnus cargo vessels were docked at the ISS together for the first time in April 2016.
 
Japan's Kounotori 4 berthing
 
Commercial Crew Program vehicles Starliner and Dragon

A wide variety of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft have supported the station's activities. Flights to the ISS include 37 Space Shuttle missions, 83 Progress resupply spacecraft (including the modified M-MIM2, M-SO1 and M-UM module transports), 63 crewed Soyuz spacecraft, 5 European ATVs, 9 Japanese HTVs, 1 Boeing Starliner, 30 SpaceX Dragon ( both crewed and uncrewed) and 18 Cygnus missions.[34]

There are currently twelve available docking ports for visiting spacecraft:[35]

  1. Harmony forward (with IDA 2)
  2. Harmony zenith (with IDA 3)
  3. Harmony nadir
  4. Unity nadir
  5. Prichal nadir
  6. Prichal aft
  7. Prichal forward
  8. Prichal starboard
  9. Prichal port
  10. Nauka forward[36]
  11. Poisk zenith
  12. Rassvet nadir
  13. Zvezda aft

Crewed

This section is an excerpt from List of human spaceflights to the International Space Station.[edit]
As of 24 April 2021, 244 people from 19 countries had visited the space station, many of them multiple times. The United States sent 153 people, Russia sent 50, nine were Japanese, eight were Canadian, five were Italian, four were French, three were German, and there were one each from Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates.[37]

Uncrewed

This paragraph is an excerpt from Uncrewed spaceflights to the International Space Station.[edit]

Uncrewed spaceflights to the International Space Station (ISS) are made primarily to deliver cargo, however several Russian modules have also docked to the outpost following uncrewed launches. Resupply missions typically use the Russian Progress spacecraft, European Automated Transfer Vehicles, Japanese Kounotori vehicles, and the American Dragon and Cygnus spacecraft. The primary docking system for Progress spacecraft is the automated Kurs system, with the manual TORU system as a backup. ATVs also use Kurs, however they are not equipped with TORU. Progress and ATV can remain docked for up to six months.[38][39] The other spacecraft — the Japanese HTV, the SpaceX Dragon (under CRS phase 1) and the Northrop Grumman[40] Cygnus — rendezvous with the station before being grappled using Canadarm2 and berthed at the nadir port of the Harmony or Unity module for one to two months. Under CRS phase 2, Cargo Dragon docks autonomously at IDA-2 or 3 as the case may be. As of December 2022, Progress spacecraft have flown most of the uncrewed missions to the ISS.

To avoid confusion, this list includes Soyuz MS-23, which will launch uncrewed and land crewed, but does not include Soyuz MS-22, which was launched crewed and land uncrewed, which is listed at List of human spaceflights to the International Space Station.

Repairs

This section is an excerpt from Maintenance of the International Space Station.[edit]
 
Astronaut Scott Parazynski of STS-120 conducted a 7-hour, 19-minute spacewalk to repair (essentially sew) a damaged solar panel which helps supply power to the International Space Station. NASA considered the spacewalk dangerous with potential risk of electrical shock.
Since construction started, the International Space Station programme has had to deal with several maintenance issues, unexpected problems and failures. These incidents have affected the assembly timeline, led to periods of reduced capabilities of the station and in some cases could have forced the crew to abandon the space station for safety reasons, had these problems not been resolved.

Mission control centres

The components of the ISS are operated and monitored by their respective space agencies at mission control centres across the globe, including:

 
Space centres involved with the ISS programme

Politics

This section is an excerpt from Politics of the International Space Station.[edit]
 
  Primary contributing nations
  Formerly contracted nations
Politics of the International Space Station have been affected by superpower rivalries, international treaties and funding arrangements. The Cold War was an early factor, overtaken in recent years by the United States' distrust of China. The station has an international crew, with the use of their time, and that of equipment on the station, being governed by treaties between participant nations.

Usage of crew and hardware

This section is an excerpt from Politics of the International Space Station § Usage of crew and hardware.[edit]
 
Allocation of US Orbital Segment hardware usage between nations.

There is no fixed percentage of ownership for the whole space station. Rather, Article 5 of the IGA sets forth that each partner shall retain jurisdiction and control over the elements it registers and over personnel in or on the Space Station who are its nationals.[42] Therefore, for each ISS module only one partner retains sole ownership. Still, the agreements to use the space station facilities are more complex.

The station is composed of two sides: the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) and U.S. Orbital Segment (USOS).[43]

  • Russian Orbital Segment (mostly Russian ownership, except the Zarya module)
    • Zarya: first component of the Space Station, storage, USSR/Russia-built, U.S.-funded (hence U.S.-owned)
    • Zvezda: the functional centre of the Russian portion, living quarters, Russia-owned
    • Pirs: airlock, docking, Russia-owned (Decommissioned)
    • Poisk: redundancy for Pirs, Russia-owned
    • Rassvet: storage, docking, Russia-owned
    • Nauka: Russian multipurpose laboratory module
  • U.S. Orbital Segment (mixed U.S. and international ownership)
    • Columbus laboratory: 51% for ESA, 46.7% for NASA and 2.3% for CSA.[44]
    • Kibō laboratory: Japanese module, 51% for JAXA, 46.7% for NASA and 2.3% for CSA.[45]
    • Destiny laboratory: 97.7% for NASA and 2.3% for CSA.[46]
    • Crew time, electrical power and rights to purchase supporting services (such as data upload & download and communications) are divided 76.6% for NASA, 12.8% for JAXA, 8.3% for ESA, and 2.3% for CSA.[44][45][46]

Future of the ISS

 
The heads of the ISS agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States meet in Tokyo to review ISS cooperation.

Former NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin says the International Space Station has a role to play as NASA moves forward with a new focus for the crewed space programme, which is to go out beyond Earth orbit for purposes of human exploration and scientific discovery. "The International Space Station is now a stepping stone on the way, rather than being the end of the line," Griffin said.[47] Griffin has said that station crews will not only continue to learn how to live and work in space, but also will learn how to build hardware that can survive and function for the years required to make the round-trip voyage from Earth to Mars.[47]

Despite this view, however, in an internal e-mail leaked to the press on August 18, 2008 from Griffin to NASA managers,[48][49][50] Griffin apparently communicated his belief that the current US administration had made no viable plan for US crews to participate in the ISS beyond 2011, and that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) were actually seeking its demise.[49] The e-mail appeared to suggest that Griffin believed the only reasonable solution was to extend the operation of the Space Shuttle beyond 2010, but noted that Executive Policy (i.e. the White House) was firm that there would be no extension of the Space Shuttle retirement date, and thus no US capability to launch crews into orbit until the Orion spacecraft would become operational in 2020 as part of the Constellation programme. He did not see purchase of Russian launches for NASA crews as politically viable following the 2008 South Ossetia war, and hoped the incoming Barack Obama administration would resolve the issue in 2009 by extending Space Shuttle operations beyond 2010.

A solicitation issued by NASA JSC indicates NASA's intent to purchase from Roscosmos "a minimum of 3 Soyuz seats up to a maximum of 24 seats beginning in the Spring of 2012" to provide ISS crew transportation.[51][52]

On September 7, 2008, NASA released a statement regarding the leaked email, in which Griffin said:

The leaked internal email fails to provide the contextual framework for my remarks, and my support for the administration's policies. Administration policy is to retire the shuttle in 2010 and purchase crew transport from Russia until Ares and Orion are available. The administration continues to support our request for an INKSNA exemption. Administration policy continues to be that we will take no action to preclude continued operation of the International Space Station past 2016. I strongly support these administration policies, as do OSTP and OMB.

— Michael D. Griffin[53]

On October 15, 2008, President Bush signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2008, giving NASA funding for one additional mission to "deliver science experiments to the station".[54][55][56][57] The Act allows for an additional Space Shuttle flight, STS-134, to the ISS to install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which was previously cancelled.[58]

President of the United States Barack Obama has supported the continued operation of the station, and supported the NASA Authorization Act of 2008.[58] Obama's plan for space exploration includes finishing the station and completion of the US programmes related to the Orion spacecraft.[59]

End of mission

This section is an excerpt from International Space Station § End of mission.[edit]
 
Many ISS resupply spacecraft have already undergone atmospheric re-entry, such as Jules Verne ATV

According to the Outer Space Treaty, the United States and Russia are legally responsible for all modules they have launched.[60] Several possible disposal options were considered: Natural orbital decay with random reentry (as with Skylab), boosting the station to a higher altitude (which would delay reentry), and a controlled targeted de-orbit to a remote ocean area.[61] In late 2010, the preferred plan was to use a slightly modified Progress spacecraft to de-orbit the ISS.[62] This plan was seen as the simplest, cheapest and with the highest margin of safety.[clarify][62]

OPSEK was previously intended to be constructed of modules from the Russian Orbital Segment after the ISS is decommissioned. The modules under consideration for removal from the current ISS included the Multipurpose Laboratory Module (Nauka), launched in July 2021, and the other new Russian modules that are proposed to be attached to Nauka. These newly launched modules would still be well within their useful lives in 2024.[63]

At the end of 2011, the Exploration Gateway Platform concept also proposed using leftover USOS hardware and Zvezda 2 as a refuelling depot and service station located at one of the Earth–Moon Lagrange points. However, the entire USOS was not designed for disassembly and will be discarded.[64]

On 30 September 2015, Boeing's contract with NASA as prime contractor for the ISS was extended to 30 September 2020. Part of Boeing's services under the contract related to extending the station's primary structural hardware past 2020 to the end of 2028.[65]

There have also been suggestions in the commercial space industry that the station could be converted to commercial operations after it is retired by government entities.[66]

In July 2018, the Space Frontier Act of 2018 was intended to extend operations of the ISS to 2030. This bill was unanimously approved in the Senate, but failed to pass in the U.S. House.[67][68] In September 2018, the Leading Human Spaceflight Act was introduced with the intent to extend operations of the ISS to 2030, and was confirmed in December 2018.[69][70][71] Congress later passed similar provisions in its CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden on 9 August 2022.[72][73]

In January 2022, NASA announced a planned date of January 2031 to de-orbit the ISS using a deorbit module and direct any remnants into a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean.[74]

New partners

China has reportedly expressed interest in the project, especially if it would be able to work with the RKA. Due to national security concerns, the United States Congress passed a law prohibiting contact between US and Chinese space programmes.[75] As of 2019, China is not involved in the International Space Station.[76] In addition to national security concerns, United States objections include China's human rights record and issues surrounding technology transfer.[77][78] The heads of both the South Korean and Indian space agencies announced at the first plenary session of the 2009 International Astronautical Congress on 12 October that their nations intend to join the ISS programme. The talks began in 2010, and were not successful. The heads of agency also expressed support for extending ISS lifetime.[79] European countries not a part of the International Space Station programme will be allowed access to the station in a three-year trial period, ESA officials say.[80] The Indian Space Research Organisation has made it clear that it will not join the ISS and will instead build its own space station.[81]

Cost

This section is an excerpt from International Space Station § Cost.[edit]
The ISS has been described as the most expensive single item ever constructed.[82] As of 2010, the total cost was US$150 billion. This includes NASA's budget of $58.7 billion ($89.73 billion in 2021 dollars) for the station from 1985 to 2015, Russia's $12 billion, Europe's $5 billion, Japan's $5 billion, Canada's $2 billion, and the cost of 36 shuttle flights to build the station, estimated at $1.4 billion each, or $50.4 billion in total. Assuming 20,000 person-days of use from 2000 to 2015 by two- to six-person crews, each person-day would cost $7.5 million, less than half the inflation-adjusted $19.6 million ($5.5 million before inflation) per person-day of Skylab.[83]

Public opinion

The International Space Station has been the target of varied criticism over the years. Critics contend that the time and money spent on the ISS could be better spent on other projects—whether they be robotic spacecraft missions, space exploration, investigations of problems here on Earth, or just tax savings.[84] Some critics, like Robert L. Park, argue that very little scientific research was convincingly planned for the ISS in the first place.[85] They also argue that the primary feature of a space-based laboratory is its microgravity environment, which can usually be studied more cheaply with a "vomit comet".[86]

One of the most ambitious ISS modules to date, the Centrifuge Accommodations Module, has been cancelled due to the prohibitive costs NASA faces in simply completing the ISS. As a result, the research done on the ISS is generally limited to experiments which do not require any specialized apparatus. For example, in the first half of 2007, ISS research dealt primarily with human biological responses to being in space, covering topics like kidney stones, circadian rhythm, and the effects of cosmic rays on the nervous system.[87][88][89]

Other critics have attacked the ISS on some technical design grounds:

  1. Jeff Foust argued that the ISS requires too much maintenance, especially by risky, expensive EVAs.[90] The magazine The American Enterprise reports, for instance, that ISS astronauts "now spend 85 percent of their time on construction and maintenance" alone.[citation needed]
  2. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has mentioned that its orbit is rather highly inclined, which makes Russian launches cheaper, but US launches more expensive.[91]

Critics[who?] also say that NASA is often casually credited with "spin-offs" (such as Velcro and portable computers) that were developed independently for other reasons.[92] NASA maintains a list of spin-offs from the construction of the ISS, as well as from work performed on the ISS.[93][94]

In response to some of these criticisms, advocates of human space exploration say that criticism of the ISS programme is short-sighted, and that crewed space research and exploration have produced billions of dollars' worth of tangible benefits to people on Earth. Jerome Schnee estimated that the indirect economic return from spin-offs of human space exploration has been many times the initial public investment.[95] A review of the claims by the Federation of American Scientists argued that NASA's rate of return from spin-offs is actually "astoundingly bad", except for aeronautics work that has led to aircraft sales.[96]

It is therefore debatable whether the ISS, as distinct from the wider space programme, is a major contributor to society. Some advocates[who?] argue that apart from its scientific value, it is an important example of international cooperation.[97] Others[who?] claim that the ISS is an asset that, if properly leveraged, could allow more economical crewed Lunar and Mars missions.[98]

Notes

  1. ^ Privately funded travellers who have objected to the term include Dennis Tito, the first such traveller,[21] Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu,[22] Gregory Olsen and Richard Garriott.[23][24] Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk said the term does not seem appropriate, referring to his crewmate, Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil.[25] Anousheh Ansari denied being a tourist[26] and took offence at the term.[27]
  2. ^ ESA director Jörg Feustel-Büechl said in 2001 that Russia had no right to send 'amateurs' to the ISS. A 'stand-off' occurred at the Johnson Space Center between Commander Talgat Musabayev and NASA manager Robert Cabana who refused to train Dennis Tito, a member of Musabayev's crew along with Yuri Baturin. Musabayev argued that Tito had trained 700 hours in the last year and was as qualified as any NASA astronaut, and refused to allow his crew to be trained on the USOS without Tito. Cabana would not allow training to begin, and the commander returned with his crew to their hotel.

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  35. ^ just for Nauka Experimental Airlock Module, that will be berthed to the forward port at its aft docking port by ERA, thereby being attached permanently to it.
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External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Category:International Space Station program.
  • ESA - Columbus
  • JAXA - Space Environment Utilization and Space Experiment
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  • RSC Energia - Science Research on ISS Russian Segment January 11, 2018, at the Wayback Machine

February 19, 2023
international, space, station, programme, this, article, needs, updated, please, help, update, this, article, reflect, recent, events, newly, available, information, july, 2022, tied, together, complex, legal, political, financial, agreements, between, fifteen. This article needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information July 2022 The International Space Station programme is tied together by a complex set of legal political and financial agreements between the fifteen nations involved in the project governing ownership of the various components rights to crewing and utilisation and responsibilities for crew rotation and resupply of the International Space Station It was conceived in September 1993 by the United States and Russia after 1980s plans for separate American Freedom and Soviet Mir 2 space stations failed due to budgetary reasons 2 These agreements tie together the five space agencies and their respective International Space Station programmes and govern how they interact with each other on a daily basis to maintain station operations from traffic control of spacecraft to and from the station to utilisation of space and crew time In March 2010 the International Space Station Program Managers from each of the five partner agencies were presented with Aviation Week s Laureate Award in the Space category 3 and the ISS programme was awarded the 2009 Collier Trophy International Space Station programmeProgram overviewOrganisationCSAESAJAXANASARoscosmosManagerCSA Pierre JeanESA Bernardo PattiJAXA Yoshiyuki HasegawaNASA Joel Montalbano 2020 present 1 Roscosmos Alexey KrasnovStatusActiveProgramme historyCost 150 billion 2010 Duration1983 present 2 First flightZaryaNovember 20 1998First crewed flightSTS 88December 4 1998Launch site s Baikonur 1998 present Kennedy 1998 present Cape Canaveral 2010 present Wallops 2013 present Vehicle informationUncrewed vehicle s Progress 2000 present ATV 2008 2015 HTV 2009 2020 Dragon 2010 2020 Cygnus 2013 present Cargo Dragon 2020 present Crewed vehicle s ISS 1998 present Space Shuttle 1998 2011 Soyuz 2000 present Crew Dragon 2020 present Crew capacityISS 7Soyuz 3Crew Dragon 4Launch vehicle s Proton 1998 present Space Shuttle 1998 2011 Soyuz 2000 present Falcon 9 2010 present Antares 2013 present Atlas V 2015 2017 Contents 1 History and conception 1 1 1998 agreement 2 Programme operations 2 1 Expeditions 2 2 Private flights 2 3 Fleet operations 2 3 1 Crewed 2 3 2 Uncrewed 2 4 Repairs 2 5 Mission control centres 3 Politics 3 1 Usage of crew and hardware 4 Future of the ISS 4 1 End of mission 4 2 New partners 5 Cost 6 Public opinion 7 Notes 8 References 9 External linksHistory and conception EditIn the early 1980s NASA planned to launch a modular space station called Freedom as a counterpart to the Soviet Salyut and Mir space stations In 1984 the ESA was invited to participate in Space Station Freedom and the ESA approved the Columbus laboratory by 1987 4 The Japanese Experiment Module JEM or Kibō was announced in 1985 as part of the Freedom space station in response to a NASA request in 1982 In early 1985 science ministers from the European Space Agency ESA countries approved the Columbus programme the most ambitious effort in space undertaken by that organisation at the time The plan spearheaded by Germany and Italy included a module which would be attached to Freedom and with the capability to evolve into a full fledged European orbital outpost before the end of the century The space station was also going to tie the emerging European and Japanese national space programmes closer to the US led project thereby preventing those nations from becoming major independent competitors too 5 In September 1993 American Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station which eventually became the International Space Station 6 They also agreed in preparation for this new project that the United States would be involved in the Mir programme including American Shuttles docking in the Shuttle Mir programme 7 On 12 April 2021 at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin then Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov announced he had decided that Russia might withdraw from the ISS programme in 2025 8 9 According to Russian authorities the timeframe of the station s operations has expired and its condition leaves much to be desired 8 On 26 July 2022 Borisov who had become head of Roscosmos submitted to Putin his plans for withdrawal from the programme after 2024 10 However Robyn Gatens the NASA official in charge of space station operations responded that NASA had not received any formal notices from Roscosmos concerning withdrawal plans 11 On 21 September 2022 Borisov stated that Russia was highly likely to continue to participate in the ISS programme until 2028 12 1998 agreement Edit A commemorative plaque honouring Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement signed on January 29 1998 The legal structure that regulates the station is multi layered The primary layer establishing obligations and rights between the ISS partners is the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement IGA an international treaty signed on January 28 1998 by fifteen governments involved in the space station project The ISS consists of Canada Japan the Russian Federation the United States and eleven Member States of the European Space Agency Belgium Denmark France Germany Italy The Netherlands Norway Spain Sweden Switzerland and the United Kingdom 13 Article 1 outlines its purpose This Agreement is a long term international co operative framework on the basis of genuine partnership for the detailed design development operation and utilization of a permanently inhabited civil Space Station for peaceful purposes in accordance with international law 14 The IGA sets the stage for a second layer of agreements between the partners referred to as Memoranda of Understanding MOUs of which four exist between NASA and each of the four other partners There are no MOUs between ESA Roskosmos CSA and JAXA because NASA is the designated manager of the ISS The MOUs are used to describe the roles and responsibilities of the partners in more detail A third layer consists of bartered contractual agreements or the trading of the partners rights and duties including the 2005 commercial framework agreement between NASA and Roscosmos that sets forth the terms and conditions under which NASA purchases seats on Soyuz crew transporters and cargo capacity on uncrewed Progress transporters A fourth legal layer of agreements implements and supplements the four MOUs further Notably among them is the ISS code of conduct made in 2000 setting out criminal jurisdiction anti harassment and certain other behavior rules for ISS crewmembers 15 Programme operations EditExpeditions Edit This section is an excerpt from International Space Station Expeditions edit Zarya and Unity were entered for the first time on 10 December 1998 Soyuz TM 31 being prepared to bring the first resident crew to the station in October 2000 Each permanent crew is given an expedition number Expeditions run up to six months from launch until undocking an increment covers the same time period but includes cargo spacecraft and all activities Expeditions 1 to 6 consisted of three person crews Expeditions 7 to 12 were reduced to the safe minimum of two following the destruction of the NASA Shuttle Columbia From Expedition 13 the crew gradually increased to six around 2010 16 17 With the arrival of crew on US commercial vehicles beginning in 2020 18 NASA has indicated that expedition size may be increased to seven crew members the number ISS was originally designed for 19 20 Private flights Edit This section is an excerpt from International Space Station Private flights edit Travellers who pay for their own passage into space are termed spaceflight participants by Roscosmos and NASA and are sometimes referred to as space tourists a term they generally dislike a As of 2021 update seven space tourists have visited the ISS all seven were transported to the ISS on Russian Soyuz spacecraft When professional crews change over in numbers not divisible by the three seats in a Soyuz and a short stay crewmember is not sent the spare seat is sold by MirCorp through Space Adventures Space tourism was halted in 2011 when the Space Shuttle was retired and the station s crew size was reduced to six as the partners relied on Russian transport seats for access to the station Soyuz flight schedules increased after 2013 allowing five Soyuz flights 15 seats with only two expeditions 12 seats required 28 The remaining seats were to be sold for around US 40 million to members of the public who could pass a medical exam ESA and NASA criticised private spaceflight at the beginning of the ISS and NASA initially resisted training Dennis Tito the first person to pay for his own passage to the ISS b Anousheh Ansari became the first self funded woman to fly to the ISS as well as the first Iranian in space Officials reported that her education and experience made her much more than a tourist and her performance in training had been excellent 29 She did Russian and European studies involving medicine and microbiology during her 10 day stay The 2009 documentary Space Tourists follows her journey to the station where she fulfilled an age old dream of man to leave our planet as a normal person and travel into outer space 30 In 2008 spaceflight participant Richard Garriott placed a geocache aboard the ISS during his flight 31 This is currently the only non terrestrial geocache in existence 32 At the same time the Immortality Drive an electronic record of eight digitised human DNA sequences was placed aboard the ISS 33 Fleet operations Edit This section is an excerpt from International Space Station Fleet operations edit Dragon and Cygnus cargo vessels were docked at the ISS together for the first time in April 2016 Japan s Kounotori 4 berthing Commercial Crew Program vehicles Starliner and Dragon A wide variety of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft have supported the station s activities Flights to the ISS include 37 Space Shuttle missions 83 Progress resupply spacecraft including the modified M MIM2 M SO1 and M UM module transports 63 crewed Soyuz spacecraft 5 European ATVs 9 Japanese HTVs 1 Boeing Starliner 30 SpaceX Dragon both crewed and uncrewed and 18 Cygnus missions 34 There are currently twelve available docking ports for visiting spacecraft 35 Harmony forward with IDA 2 Harmony zenith with IDA 3 Harmony nadir Unity nadir Prichal nadir Prichal aft Prichal forward Prichal starboard Prichal port Nauka forward 36 Poisk zenith Rassvet nadir Zvezda aft Crewed Edit This section is an excerpt from List of human spaceflights to the International Space Station edit As of 24 April 2021 ref 244 people from 19 countries had visited the space station many of them multiple times The United States sent 153 people Russia sent 50 nine were Japanese eight were Canadian five were Italian four were French three were German and there were one each from Belgium Brazil Denmark Great Britain Kazakhstan Malaysia the Netherlands South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden and the United Arab Emirates 37 Uncrewed Edit This paragraph is an excerpt from Uncrewed spaceflights to the International Space Station edit Uncrewed spaceflights to the International Space Station ISS are made primarily to deliver cargo however several Russian modules have also docked to the outpost following uncrewed launches Resupply missions typically use the Russian Progress spacecraft European Automated Transfer Vehicles Japanese Kounotori vehicles and the American Dragon and Cygnus spacecraft The primary docking system for Progress spacecraft is the automated Kurs system with the manual TORU system as a backup ATVs also use Kurs however they are not equipped with TORU Progress and ATV can remain docked for up to six months 38 39 The other spacecraft the Japanese HTV the SpaceX Dragon under CRS phase 1 and the Northrop Grumman 40 Cygnus rendezvous with the station before being grappled using Canadarm2 and berthed at the nadir port of the Harmony or Unity module for one to two months Under CRS phase 2 Cargo Dragon docks autonomously at IDA 2 or 3 as the case may be As of December 2022 Progress spacecraft have flown most of the uncrewed missions to the ISS To avoid confusion this list includes Soyuz MS 23 which will launch uncrewed and land crewed but does not include Soyuz MS 22 which was launched crewed and land uncrewed which is listed at List of human spaceflights to the International Space Station Repairs Edit This section is an excerpt from Maintenance of the International Space Station edit Astronaut Scott Parazynski of STS 120 conducted a 7 hour 19 minute spacewalk to repair essentially sew a damaged solar panel which helps supply power to the International Space Station NASA considered the spacewalk dangerous with potential risk of electrical shock Since construction started the International Space Station programme has had to deal with several maintenance issues unexpected problems and failures These incidents have affected the assembly timeline led to periods of reduced capabilities of the station and in some cases could have forced the crew to abandon the space station for safety reasons had these problems not been resolved Mission control centres Edit The components of the ISS are operated and monitored by their respective space agencies at mission control centres across the globe including Roscosmos RKA Mission Control Center at Korolyov Russia manages the maintaining of the station controls launches of the crewed missions guides launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome ESA s ATV Control Centre at the Toulouse Space Centre CST in Toulouse France controlled flights of the uncrewed European Automated Transfer Vehicle 41 JAXA s JEM Control Center and HTV Control Center at Tsukuba Space Center TKSC in Ibaraki Japan responsible for operating the Kibō complex and all flights of the White Stork HTV Cargo spacecraft respectively 41 NASA s Christopher C Kraft Jr Mission Control Center at Lyndon B Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas serves as the primary control facility for the United States segment of the ISS 41 NASA s Payload Operations and Integration Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama coordinates payload operations in the USOS 41 ESA s Columbus Control Center at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen Germany manages the European Columbus research laboratory 41 CSA s MSS Control at Saint Hubert Quebec Canada controls and monitors the Mobile Servicing System 41 Space centres involved with the ISS programmePolitics EditThis section is an excerpt from Politics of the International Space Station edit This article needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information July 2022 Primary contributing nations Formerly contracted nations Politics of the International Space Station have been affected by superpower rivalries international treaties and funding arrangements The Cold War was an early factor overtaken in recent years by the United States distrust of China The station has an international crew with the use of their time and that of equipment on the station being governed by treaties between participant nations Usage of crew and hardware Edit This section is an excerpt from Politics of the International Space Station Usage of crew and hardware edit Allocation of US Orbital Segment hardware usage between nations There is no fixed percentage of ownership for the whole space station Rather Article 5 of the IGA sets forth that each partner shall retain jurisdiction and control over the elements it registers and over personnel in or on the Space Station who are its nationals 42 Therefore for each ISS module only one partner retains sole ownership Still the agreements to use the space station facilities are more complex The station is composed of two sides the Russian Orbital Segment ROS and U S Orbital Segment USOS 43 Russian Orbital Segment mostly Russian ownership except the Zarya module Zarya first component of the Space Station storage USSR Russia built U S funded hence U S owned Zvezda the functional centre of the Russian portion living quarters Russia owned Pirs airlock docking Russia owned Decommissioned Poisk redundancy for Pirs Russia owned Rassvet storage docking Russia owned Nauka Russian multipurpose laboratory module U S Orbital Segment mixed U S and international ownership Columbus laboratory 51 for ESA 46 7 for NASA and 2 3 for CSA 44 Kibō laboratory Japanese module 51 for JAXA 46 7 for NASA and 2 3 for CSA 45 Destiny laboratory 97 7 for NASA and 2 3 for CSA 46 Crew time electrical power and rights to purchase supporting services such as data upload amp download and communications are divided 76 6 for NASA 12 8 for JAXA 8 3 for ESA and 2 3 for CSA 44 45 46 Future of the ISS Edit The heads of the ISS agencies from Canada Europe Japan Russia and the United States meet in Tokyo to review ISS cooperation Former NASA Administrator Michael D Griffin says the International Space Station has a role to play as NASA moves forward with a new focus for the crewed space programme which is to go out beyond Earth orbit for purposes of human exploration and scientific discovery The International Space Station is now a stepping stone on the way rather than being the end of the line Griffin said 47 Griffin has said that station crews will not only continue to learn how to live and work in space but also will learn how to build hardware that can survive and function for the years required to make the round trip voyage from Earth to Mars 47 Despite this view however in an internal e mail leaked to the press on August 18 2008 from Griffin to NASA managers 48 49 50 Griffin apparently communicated his belief that the current US administration had made no viable plan for US crews to participate in the ISS beyond 2011 and that the Office of Management and Budget OMB and Office of Science and Technology Policy OSTP were actually seeking its demise 49 The e mail appeared to suggest that Griffin believed the only reasonable solution was to extend the operation of the Space Shuttle beyond 2010 but noted that Executive Policy i e the White House was firm that there would be no extension of the Space Shuttle retirement date and thus no US capability to launch crews into orbit until the Orion spacecraft would become operational in 2020 as part of the Constellation programme He did not see purchase of Russian launches for NASA crews as politically viable following the 2008 South Ossetia war and hoped the incoming Barack Obama administration would resolve the issue in 2009 by extending Space Shuttle operations beyond 2010 A solicitation issued by NASA JSC indicates NASA s intent to purchase from Roscosmos a minimum of 3 Soyuz seats up to a maximum of 24 seats beginning in the Spring of 2012 to provide ISS crew transportation 51 52 On September 7 2008 NASA released a statement regarding the leaked email in which Griffin said The leaked internal email fails to provide the contextual framework for my remarks and my support for the administration s policies Administration policy is to retire the shuttle in 2010 and purchase crew transport from Russia until Ares and Orion are available The administration continues to support our request for an INKSNA exemption Administration policy continues to be that we will take no action to preclude continued operation of the International Space Station past 2016 I strongly support these administration policies as do OSTP and OMB Michael D Griffin 53 On October 15 2008 President Bush signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 giving NASA funding for one additional mission to deliver science experiments to the station 54 55 56 57 The Act allows for an additional Space Shuttle flight STS 134 to the ISS to install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer which was previously cancelled 58 President of the United States Barack Obama has supported the continued operation of the station and supported the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 58 Obama s plan for space exploration includes finishing the station and completion of the US programmes related to the Orion spacecraft 59 End of mission Edit This section is an excerpt from International Space Station End of mission edit Many ISS resupply spacecraft have already undergone atmospheric re entry such as Jules Verne ATV According to the Outer Space Treaty the United States and Russia are legally responsible for all modules they have launched 60 Several possible disposal options were considered Natural orbital decay with random reentry as with Skylab boosting the station to a higher altitude which would delay reentry and a controlled targeted de orbit to a remote ocean area 61 In late 2010 the preferred plan was to use a slightly modified Progress spacecraft to de orbit the ISS 62 This plan was seen as the simplest cheapest and with the highest margin of safety clarify 62 OPSEK was previously intended to be constructed of modules from the Russian Orbital Segment after the ISS is decommissioned The modules under consideration for removal from the current ISS included the Multipurpose Laboratory Module Nauka launched in July 2021 and the other new Russian modules that are proposed to be attached to Nauka These newly launched modules would still be well within their useful lives in 2024 63 At the end of 2011 the Exploration Gateway Platform concept also proposed using leftover USOS hardware and Zvezda 2 as a refuelling depot and service station located at one of the Earth Moon Lagrange points However the entire USOS was not designed for disassembly and will be discarded 64 On 30 September 2015 Boeing s contract with NASA as prime contractor for the ISS was extended to 30 September 2020 Part of Boeing s services under the contract related to extending the station s primary structural hardware past 2020 to the end of 2028 65 There have also been suggestions in the commercial space industry that the station could be converted to commercial operations after it is retired by government entities 66 In July 2018 the Space Frontier Act of 2018 was intended to extend operations of the ISS to 2030 This bill was unanimously approved in the Senate but failed to pass in the U S House 67 68 In September 2018 the Leading Human Spaceflight Act was introduced with the intent to extend operations of the ISS to 2030 and was confirmed in December 2018 69 70 71 Congress later passed similar provisions in its CHIPS and Science Act signed into law by President Joe Biden on 9 August 2022 72 73 In January 2022 NASA announced a planned date of January 2031 to de orbit the ISS using a deorbit module and direct any remnants into a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean 74 New partners Edit China has reportedly expressed interest in the project especially if it would be able to work with the RKA Due to national security concerns the United States Congress passed a law prohibiting contact between US and Chinese space programmes 75 As of 2019 update China is not involved in the International Space Station 76 In addition to national security concerns United States objections include China s human rights record and issues surrounding technology transfer 77 78 The heads of both the South Korean and Indian space agencies announced at the first plenary session of the 2009 International Astronautical Congress on 12 October that their nations intend to join the ISS programme The talks began in 2010 and were not successful The heads of agency also expressed support for extending ISS lifetime 79 European countries not a part of the International Space Station programme will be allowed access to the station in a three year trial period ESA officials say 80 The Indian Space Research Organisation has made it clear that it will not join the ISS and will instead build its own space station 81 Cost EditThis section is an excerpt from International Space Station Cost edit The ISS has been described as the most expensive single item ever constructed 82 As of 2010 the total cost was US 150 billion This includes NASA s budget of 58 7 billion 89 73 billion in 2021 dollars for the station from 1985 to 2015 Russia s 12 billion Europe s 5 billion Japan s 5 billion Canada s 2 billion and the cost of 36 shuttle flights to build the station estimated at 1 4 billion each or 50 4 billion in total Assuming 20 000 person days of use from 2000 to 2015 by two to six person crews each person day would cost 7 5 million less than half the inflation adjusted 19 6 million 5 5 million before inflation per person day of Skylab 83 Public opinion EditThis section may lend undue weight to vehement expert criticism rather than general public opinion Please help to create a more balanced presentation Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message July 2022 The International Space Station has been the target of varied criticism over the years Critics contend that the time and money spent on the ISS could be better spent on other projects whether they be robotic spacecraft missions space exploration investigations of problems here on Earth or just tax savings 84 Some critics like Robert L Park argue that very little scientific research was convincingly planned for the ISS in the first place 85 They also argue that the primary feature of a space based laboratory is its microgravity environment which can usually be studied more cheaply with a vomit comet 86 One of the most ambitious ISS modules to date the Centrifuge Accommodations Module has been cancelled due to the prohibitive costs NASA faces in simply completing the ISS As a result the research done on the ISS is generally limited to experiments which do not require any specialized apparatus For example in the first half of 2007 ISS research dealt primarily with human biological responses to being in space covering topics like kidney stones circadian rhythm and the effects of cosmic rays on the nervous system 87 88 89 Other critics have attacked the ISS on some technical design grounds Jeff Foust argued that the ISS requires too much maintenance especially by risky expensive EVAs 90 The magazine The American Enterprise reports for instance that ISS astronauts now spend 85 percent of their time on construction and maintenance alone citation needed The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has mentioned that its orbit is rather highly inclined which makes Russian launches cheaper but US launches more expensive 91 Critics who also say that NASA is often casually credited with spin offs such as Velcro and portable computers that were developed independently for other reasons 92 NASA maintains a list of spin offs from the construction of the ISS as well as from work performed on the ISS 93 94 In response to some of these criticisms advocates of human space exploration say that criticism of the ISS programme is short sighted and that crewed space research and exploration have produced billions of dollars worth of tangible benefits to people on Earth Jerome Schnee estimated that the indirect economic return from spin offs of human space exploration has been many times the initial public investment 95 A review of the claims by the Federation of American Scientists argued that NASA s rate of return from spin offs is actually astoundingly bad except for aeronautics work that has led to aircraft sales 96 It is therefore debatable whether the ISS as distinct from the wider space programme is a major contributor to society Some advocates who argue that apart from its scientific value it is an important example of international cooperation 97 Others who claim that the ISS is an asset that if properly leveraged could allow more economical crewed Lunar and Mars missions 98 Notes Edit Privately funded travellers who have objected to the term include Dennis Tito the first such traveller 21 Mark Shuttleworth founder of Ubuntu 22 Gregory Olsen and Richard Garriott 23 24 Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk said the term does not seem appropriate referring to his crewmate Guy Laliberte founder of Cirque du Soleil 25 Anousheh Ansari denied being a tourist 26 and took offence at the term 27 ESA director Jorg Feustel Buechl said in 2001 that Russia had no right to send amateurs to the ISS A stand off occurred at the Johnson Space Center between Commander Talgat Musabayev and NASA manager Robert Cabana who refused to train Dennis Tito a member of Musabayev s crew along with Yuri Baturin Musabayev argued that Tito had trained 700 hours in the last year and was as qualified as any NASA astronaut and refused to allow his crew to be trained on the USOS without Tito Cabana would not allow training to begin and the commander returned with his crew to their hotel References Edit Harbaugh Jennifer August 19 2015 August 19 2015 NASA Retrieved September 27 2020 a b Holmes Steven A September 3 1993 US And Russians Join in new plan for Space Station The New York Times Retrieved October 3 2022 India space station India plans to launch space 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program ESA Columbus JAXA Space Environment Utilization and Space Experiment NASA Station Science RSC Energia Science Research on ISS Russian Segment Archived January 11 2018 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title International Space Station programme amp oldid 1137026010, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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