The International Space Station celebrates 15 years of continuous human occupancy and it is not what it is today without birthing pangs, especially in the 1990s when budget constraints in the US and Russian governments eliminated portions of the project which originally was planned to be a grand design orbiting laboratory, reported NASA Space Flight.
Construction began in November and December of 1998 and the completion was estimated to be in 2006. However, it was stalled for 2.5 years from November 2002 to September 2006, due to the tragic loss of Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003. The Columbia loss also reduced the number of crew living aboard the station from a minimum of three to two; and likewise transferred the Space Shuttle Orbiters away from the primary crew rotations to outfitting and construction missions with scattered one-man rotation flights from July 2006 to November 2009.
The International Space Station's 15 years of human habitation would not have been possible without the previous ISS expeditions, Soyuz crew rotation missions, Russian Progress resupply, as well as Commercial Dragon and Cygnus resupply efforts and most of all the 37 flights of Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis to construct the Space Station.
Truly, it goes back to International Space Station Expedition 1 when it was ready for its first resident crew, 15 years ago.
It was Nov. 2, 2000 when the International Space Station had the first humans on board. The Expedition 1 had commander NASA's William M. "Bill" Shepherd, Flight Engineer Sergei Krikaleve and Soyuz commander Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos. The trio's arrival at the ISS marked the commencement of an uninterrupted human presence in the orbiting laboratory, said NASA.
The trio's Soyuz capsule connected to the aft docking port of the ISS' Zvezda Service Module at 3:21 a.m. CST while the two spacecrafts flew over Kazakhstan's central portion. At 4:23 a.m., the hatch leading to the living quarters of Zvezda was opened. Krikalev and Gidzenko floated into the Zvezda first, then Shepherd followed. They continued to work once inside the space station to bring it to life.
The trio activated systems on board, unpacked delivered equipment and hosted three visiting Space Shuttle crews as well as two unmanned Russian Progress resupplies. They went back to Earth on March 21, 2001.
For 15 years, 45 crewed expeditions, 220 plus people from 17 countries, have lived in the International Space Station. It now measures 357 feet wide and provides a more livable room, similar to a six-bedroom residence. A total of 191 scientific investigations were slated for Expeditions 45 and 46 while 22 scientific investigations were conducted in the International Space Station.
