The International Space Station (ISS) is a modular space station (habitable artificial satellite) in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements. The station serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific research is conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields. The ISS is suited for testing the spacecraft systems and equipment required for possible future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.
The ISS is made up of different components like solar arrays. Its first component was launched in orbit in 1998 with Proton and Soyuz rockets launching it. It is a work station in space for experiments which is capable to hold large number of crew members at a time. Astronauts are transported between the earth and ISS with rockets. Cargo is transported through the Dragon rocket. It helps individual experiments and research and reduce the need of separate rocket launches and research staff.
Research includes material science, weather, natural disaster etc. Unlike unmanned spacecraft, ISS can send data on demand for the learning purpose of people on earth. This is only possible because of the invariable presence of crew members who replace each other from time to time. Scientists on earth use data sent by crew members of ISS for research.
Picture Credit : Google