Permanent residency in space

The largest object ever built in space celebrates 23 years of continuous human presence today. ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet took this picture while flying around the International Space Station, looking back at the amazing piece of spacecraft engineering he called home for six months during his Alpha mission.

“It was absolutely incredible to view the Space Station from afar with the cosmos as backdrop,” said Thomas of his fly around the Space Station during the trip back to Earth on the Crew Dragon capsule. 

Expedition 1 was the first crew to inhabit the orbital outpost for a long stay of over four months. NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd and Russia’s Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev opened the hatch on 2 November 2000, beginning an uninterrupted chain of missions.

Since then, there have always been humans in space. Anyone 23 years old or younger has lived with a crewed station travelling 400 km above their heads at 28 000 km per hour, orbiting Earth approximately 16 times every day.

The first tasks of the Expedition 1 crew included turning on the lights and the hot water dispenser, as well as activating the toilet and looking for connector cables. The Space Station was much smaller back then – just three habitable modules compared to the 16 it boasts today. Today’s outpost has the size of a football field with dozens of science experiments running at any given time.

Over these 23 years, 269 astronauts and 70 expeditions from more than 20 countries have visited the Space Station. A collaboration between five space agencies, the International Space Station has become a symbol of peaceful cooperation across borders. It has brought humankind together to work in space and keeps pursuing scientific knowledge and exploration.

Both the space landscape and the International Space Station have evolved in the last two decades. Over the past few years, a new economy is developing in low-Earth orbit, where private companies are joining the adventure supporting research, cargo deliveries and human trips into space.