International Space Station To Celebrate 15 Years Of Continuous Human Presence In Space, NASA Announces

The International Space Station crew will celebrate 15 years of nonstop human work aboard the space-based lab to mark an extraordinary event in the history of space exploration, travel, and research. All six members of the celebrating Expedition 45 crew will address a 30-minute news conference on November 2, which will air live on the agency’s television channel and website, according to NASA.

Circumnavigating 250 miles above the Earth, astronauts aboard the space station are conducting research otherwise not potentially viable on the ground. The space station is also empowering them to further enhance technological efficacy for assigned missions, as well as monitor crew and cargo transportation and travel.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a habitable artificial satellite that has continuously orbited the earth for almost a decade and a half. Presently the largest artificial body in orbit, it can be spotted with the naked eye from time to time. It serves as a microgravity and environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments associated with a host of scientific studies. The station offers a platform that facilitates spacecraft and equipment evaluation required for designated missions deep into space. It is also the ninth space station to be inhabited by crews, following the erstwhile Russian and U.S. space labs.

Expedition 1, the first crew to have inhabited the station, arrived on November 2, 2000. Home to the longest ever uninterrupted human endeavor in space, the station expanded from a pair of U.S. and Russian modules to a capacious laboratory and home base the size of a football field. The station has been frequented by astronauts, cosmonauts, and space tourists from as many as 17 different nations. Essentially a jointly collaborated project spearheaded by five participating space agencies, operational rights for the station are granted on the basis of mutually ratified contracts and agreements.

Among its many aims, the ISS research project covers a study of the mysteriously elusive dark matter known to inhabit an incalculable cosmic wilderness. Experts do so by employing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), which accurately detects invisible energy encompassing nearly 95 percent of deep space, the remaining 5 percent comprising the visibly incandescent stars. The ISS serves as the ultimate resourceful platform hovering high above the world, where complex scientific experiments can be conducted with flawless precision.

According to an earlier report from the Telegraph, two U.S. astronauts exited the International Space Station’s airlock earlier today to work on the scheduled maintenance of the station, including that of the AMS. Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren left the station for a six-and-a-half-hour walk.

According to NASA, astronauts working in a space environment for any extended period of time may experience muscle deterioration, bone damage, and restricted cardiovascular conditioning.

“NASA’s Human Research Program Integrated Resistance and Aerobic Training study, known as iRAT, completed recently to evaluate the use of high intensity exercise training to minimize loss of muscle, bone, and cardiovascular function on the International Space Station. To stay healthy in space, astronauts are scheduled to exercise for two and a half hours per day for six days per week. Most, however, exercise seven days per week. They perform both cardio and resistance exercises to keep their muscles and bones strong.”

As per the International Space Station Program Science Office, researchers at the station have already begun to make use of the microgravity environment aboard the station to make deeper inroads into the understanding of the human immune system as well as the nature of cancer cells. With the “Microgravity on Human Thyroid Carcinoma Cells” experimental exercise recently conducted in orbit, researchers are attempting to provide answers that will help in the campaign against thyroid cancer.

[Photo by Alexander Gerst via Getty Images]