The International Space Station was launched into outer space in 1998. At the moment, for almost seven thousand days, day and night, the best minds of mankind have been working on solving the most complex mysteries in zero gravity.
Outer space
Every person who has seen this unique object at least once asked a logical question: what is the height of the orbit of the International Space Station? It's just impossible to answer it in one word. The orbit altitude of the International Space Station ISS depends on many factors. Let's take a closer look at them.
The ISS orbit around the Earth is decreasing due to the impact of the rarefied atmosphere. The speed decreases, respectively, and the height decreases. How to go up again? The altitude of the ISS station's orbit can be changed using the engines of ships that dock to it.
Various heights
Several major values have been recorded over the lifetime of the space mission. Back in February 2011, the height of the ISS orbit was 353 km. All calculations are made in relation to sea level. The height of the ISS orbit in June of the same year increased to three hundred and seventy-fivekilometers. But this was far from the limit. Just two weeks later, NASA employees were happy to answer the question "What is the height of the ISS orbit at the moment?" - three hundred and eighty-five kilometers!
And this is not the limit
The height of the ISS orbit was still insufficient to resist natural friction. Engineers took a responsible and very risky step. The height of the ISS orbit was to be increased to four hundred kilometers. But this event happened a little later. The problem was that only ships were lifting the ISS. The orbit height was limited for the shuttles. Only over time, the restriction was abolished for the crew and the ISS. The altitude of the orbit since 2014 has exceeded 400 kilometers above sea level. The maximum average value was recorded in July and amounted to 417 km. In general, altitude adjustments are made constantly to fix the most optimal route.
History of Creation
As far back as 1984, the US government was hatching plans to launch a large-scale scientific project in the nearest space. It was rather difficult even for the Americans to carry out such a grandiose construction alone, and Canada and Japan were involved in the development.
In 1992, Russia was included in the campaign. In the early nineties, a large-scale Mir-2 project was planned in Moscow. But economic problems prevented grandiose plans from being realized. Gradually, the number of participating countries grew to fourteen.
Bureaucratic delays took more than three years. Only in 1995the sketch of the station was adopted, and a year later - the configuration.
November 20, 1998 was an outstanding day in the history of world cosmonautics - the first block was successfully delivered into orbit of our planet.
Assembly
ISS is brilliant in its simplicity and functionality. The station consists of independent blocks, which are interconnected like a large constructor. It is impossible to calculate the exact cost of the object. Each new block is made in a different country and, of course, varies in price. In total, a huge number of such parts can be attached, so the station can be constantly updated.
Validity period
Due to the fact that the station blocks and their contents can be changed and upgraded an unlimited number of times, the ISS can surf the expanses of near-Earth orbit for a long time.
The first alarm bell rang in 2011, when the space shuttle program was canceled due to its high cost.
But nothing terrible happened. Cargoes were regularly delivered into space by other ships. In 2012, a private commercial shuttle even successfully docked to the ISS. Subsequently, a similar event occurred repeatedly.
Threats to the station can only be political. From time to time, officials from different countries threaten to stop supporting the ISS. At first, maintenance plans were scheduled until 2015, then until 2020. At present, there is tentative agreementsupport the station until 2027.
In the meantime, politicians are arguing among themselves, the ISS in 2016 made a hundred thousandth orbit around the planet, which was originally called "Jubilee".
Electricity
Sit in the dark, of course, interesting, but sometimes annoying. On the ISS, every minute is worth its weight in gold, so the engineers were deeply puzzled by the need to provide the crew with uninterrupted electrics.
Many different ideas were proposed, and in the end they agreed that nothing could be better than solar panels in space.
When implementing the project, the Russian and American sides went different ways. Thus, the generation of electricity in the first country is produced for a system of 28 volts. The voltage in the American block is 124 V.
The ISS makes many orbits around the Earth every day. One revolution is about an hour and a half, forty-five minutes of which pass in the shade. Of course, at this time, generation from solar panels is impossible. The station is powered by nickel-hydrogen batteries. The service life of such a device is about seven years. The last time they were changed back in 2009, so the long-awaited replacement will be carried out by engineers very soon.
Device
As previously written, the ISS is a huge constructor, the parts of which are easily interconnected.
As of March 2017, the station has fourteen elements. Russia has supplied five blocks named Zarya, Poisk, Zvezda, Rassvet and Pirs. The Americans gave their seven parts the following names: Unity, Destiny, Tranquility, Quest,"Leonardo", "Domes" and "Harmony". The countries of the European Union and Japan so far have one block each: Columbus and Kibo.
Parts are constantly changing depending on the tasks assigned to the crew. Several more blocks are on the way, which will significantly enhance the research capabilities of the crew members. The most interesting, of course, are the laboratory modules. Some of them are completely sealed. Thus, absolutely everything can be explored in them, up to alien living beings, without the risk of infection for the crew.
Other blocks are designed to generate the necessary environments for normal human life. Still others allow you to freely go into space and make research, observations or repairs.
Some of the blocks do not carry a research load and are used as storage facilities.
Ongoing research
Numerous research - in fact, for the sake of which in the distant nineties politicians decided to send a constructor into space, the cost of which today is estimated at more than two hundred billion dollars. For this money, you can buy a dozen countries and get a small sea as a gift.
So, the ISS has such unique capabilities that no other terrestrial laboratory has. The first is the presence of an infinite vacuum. The second is the actual absence of gravity. The third is the most dangerous cosmic radiation, not spoiled by refraction in the earth's atmosphere.
Don't feed researchers with bread, but let them study something! They happily fulfill the duties assigned to them, evendespite the deadly risk.
Most scientists are interested in biology. This area includes biotechnology and medical research.
Other scientists often forget about sleep, exploring the physical forces of extraterrestrial space. Materials, quantum physics are only part of the research. According to the revelations of many, a favorite pastime is to test various liquids in zero gravity.
Experiments with a vacuum, in general, can be carried out outside the blocks, right in outer space. Earth scientists can only get jealous while watching the experiments via video link.
Any person on Earth would give anything for one spacewalk. For the station workers, it's practically a chore.
Conclusions
Despite the dissatisfied exclamations of many skeptics about the futility of the project, ISS scientists made many interesting discoveries that allowed us to look differently at space as a whole and at our planet.
Daily, these brave people receive a huge dose of radiation, and all for the sake of scientific research that will give humanity unprecedented opportunities. One can only admire their hard work, courage and determination.
The ISS is a fairly large object that can be seen from the surface of the Earth. There is even a whole site where you can enter the coordinates of your city and the system will tell you exactly at what time you can try to see the station, being insun lounger right on your balcony.
Of course, the space station has many opponents, but there are many more fans. And this means that the ISS will confidently stay in its orbit of four hundred kilometers above sea level and will show inveterate skeptics more than once how wrong they were in their forecasts and predictions.
