ISS. The International Space Station is 15 years in Orbit.

On November 20, 1998 a rocket carrying the first piece of the International Space Station (ISS) was launched by the Russian Space Agency. The module was named Zarya, which means « sunrise » in Russian.

After two weeks, on December 6, 1998, the shuttle Endeavor brought the first U.S. piece called Unity with a crew of six American and Russian Astronauts.

The ISS is a joint project of five different space agencies : NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the European Space agency, the Japanese Aerospace Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Together, these agencies represent 15 countries including France. There is always a team of astronauts on board from various countries around the world. Theys pend up to six month at a time on the ISS.

Since then up to fourteen modules have been added to the ISS. It is now about the size of a football field. It is the largest manmade structure ever built in space and the second brightest light in our night sky. It circles Earth every 92 minutes, so every 45 minutes, astronauts experience a sunset and a sunrise, about 16 of each every 24 hours.

Over the last 15 years, astronauts have performed 174 spacewalks, they have conducted over 1,500 experiments. One of them being the effect of zero gravity on the human body which weakens bones and muscles, in expectation for a human trip to Mars. The final module of the space station is to be launched in 2014. The program is expected to end by 2020.