Image above: The International Space Station's length and width is about the size of a football field. Credit: NASA
The International Space Station marks its 10th anniversary of continuous human occupation on Nov. 2, 2010. Since Expedition 1, which launched Oct. 31, 2000, and docked Nov. 2, the space station has been visited by 196 individuals from eight different countries.
At the time of the anniversary, the station’s odometer will read more than 1.5 billion statute miles (the equivalent of eight round trips to the Sun), over the course of 57,361 orbits around the Earth. Since the first module, Zarya, launched at 1:40 a.m. EST on Nov. 20, 1998, it has made a total of 68,519 orbits of our home planet, or about 1.7 billion miles on its odometer.
As of the Nov. 2 anniversary date there have been 103 launches to the space station: 67 Russian vehicles, 34 space shuttles, one European and one Japanese vehicle. A total of 150 spacewalks have been conducted in support of space station assembly totaling more than 944 hours.
The space station, including its large solar arrays, spans the area of a U.S. football field, including the end zones, and weighs 827,794 pounds. The complex now has more livable room than a conventional five-bedroom house, and has two bathrooms and a gymnasium.
Additional launches will continue to augment these facts and figures, so check back here for the latest.
International Space Station Size & Mass
40 feet long (pressurized section)
357 feet long (wing-to-wing)
291 feet long (truss)
240 feet wide (solar array pair)
45 feet high (Unity, Z1)
382 tons (827,126 pounds or 375,179 kilograms)
29,561 cubic feet of pressurized volume – 94 % complete
International Space Station at Completion
Image above: Expedition 22 Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov wears a Russian Orlan spacesuit during a spacewalk. Credit: NASA
The ISS solar array surface area could cover the U.S. Senate Chamber three times over.
ISS eventually will be larger than a five-bedroom house.
ISS will have an internal pressurized volume of 33,023 cubic feet, or equal that of a Boeing 747.
The solar array wingspan (240 ft) is longer than that of a Boeing 777 200/300 model, which is 212 ft.
Fifty-two computers will control the systems on the ISS.
More than 100 space flights will have been conducted on five different types of launch vehicles over the course of the station’s construction.
More than 100 telephone-booth sized rack facilities can be in the ISS for operating the spacecraft systems and research experiments
The ISS is almost four times as large as the Russian space station Mir, and about five times as large as the U.S. Skylab.
The ISS will weigh almost one million pounds (925,627 lbs). That’s the equivalent of more than 320 automobiles.
The ISS measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s equivalent to the length of a football field including the end zones (well, almost – a football field is 360 feet).
3.3 million lines of software code on the ground supports 1.8 million lines of flight software code.
8 miles of wire connects the electrical power system.
In the International Space Station’s U.S. segment alone, 1.5 million lines of flight software code will run on 44 computers communicating via 100 data networks transferring 400,000 signals (e.g. pressure or temperature measurements, valve positions, etc.).
The ISS will manage 20 times as many signals as the Space Shuttle.
Main U.S. control computers have 1.5 gigabytes of total main hard drive storage in U.S. segment compared to modern PCs, which have ~500 gigabyte hard drives.
The entire 55-foot robot arm assembly is capable of lifting 220,000 pounds, which is the weight of a Space Shuttle orbiter.
The 75 to 90 kilowatts of power for the ISS is supplied by an acre of solar panels.
Zarya: First ISS Module
Launch: Nov. 20, 1998
Vehicle: Russian Proton rocket
Function: Internal (cargo) and external (fuel) storage
Length 12.56 m (41.2 ft)
Diameter 4.11 m (13.5 ft)
Solar array length 10.67 m (35.0 ft)
Solar array width 3.35 m (11.0 ft)
Mass 19,323 kg (42,600 lb)
Expedition 1: First ISS Crew
Launch: Oct. 31, 2000
Vehicle: Russian Soyuz
Docking: Nov. 2, 2000
Undocking: March 18, 2001
Vehicle: Space Shuttle Discovery
Landing: March 21, 2001
Duration: 136 days, 17 hours, 9 minutes
See the Station in the Sky
Find out when the ISS is over your city, or track where it is right now.