International Space Station Completes 100,000 Orbits Around Earth

The International Space Station (ISS) completed its 100,000th orbit of the Earth early morning on May 16, according to NASA officials. The space station has traveled more than 4.25 billion kilometers during its journey, which is nearly the distance to Neptune and also the equivalent of 10 trips around Mars.

"This is a significant milestone and is a tribute to this international partnership, made up of the European Space Agency, of Russia, Canada, Japan and the United States," said Jeff Williams, NASA astronaut, on completing 100,000 orbits. Since the launch of its first component on Nov. 20, 1998, the ISS has been orbiting around our planet at 28,164 kilometers per hour, finishing one lap in approximately 90 minutes at a height of about 386 kilometers.

During the initial assembly stage of the orbiting lab, no one lived aboard it. However, the ISS has been continuously inhabited by changing batches of astronaut crews since November 2000. Incidentally, the station comprises of living space equal to a five bedroom house.

An expedition to the ISS usually consists of six astronauts, each of whom stays aboard the space outpost for a duration of five to six months at a time. Over the past 15.5 years, a total of 222 people have visited the space lab, including space tourists, as per NASA.

According to NASA and collaborators, the International Space Station is an important stepping stone to prep up for future missions to more distant distances like Mars. A total number of 1,900 and more experiments have been conducted aboard the space station to date, and many of them were created to help scientists and mission planners to gain more insight into how humans can travel farther out in the solar system.

Currently, the space station is scheduled to keep orbiting the Earth through 2024. However, NASA and its international team of collaborators are thinking about extending the space duration of the ISS through 2028. At the end of its time, the space lab will be deliberately de-orbited over an empty ocean stretch; subsequently the Earth's atmosphere will burn up most of the components of the ISS.