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Space station

A space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live on in outer space. A space station is distinguished from other manned spacecraft by its lack of major propulsion or landing facilities — instead, other vehicles are used as transport to and from the station. Space stations are designed for medium-term living in orbit, for periods of weeks, months, or even years.

Space stations are used to study the effects of long-term space flight on the human body as well as to provide platforms for greater number and length of scientific studies than available on other space vehicles.

Past and present space stations:

Additionally, Bigelow Aerospace is commercially developing inflatable habitat modules, intended to be used for space station construction.

Since the flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations. The duration record of 437.7 days was set by Valeri Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2003, 3 astronauts have completed single missions of over a year, all aboard Mir.

Some space station designs have been proposed which are intended as long-term space habitats for large numbers of people, essentially "cities in space" where people would make their homes. Thus far all such designs are only hypothetical, and have never been seriously considered for actual implementation.

List of occupied space stations

Space station Launched Reentered Days in use Total crew
and visitors
Visits Mass
(kg)
In orbit Occupied Manned Unmanned
Salyut 1 Apr 19, 1971
01:40:00 UTC
Oct 11, 1971 175 24 3 2 0 18,425
Skylab May 14, 1973
17:30:00 UTC
Jul 11, 1979
16:37:00 UTC
2,249 171 9 3 0 77,088
Salyut 3 Jun 25, 1974
22:38:00 UTC
Jan 24, 1975 213 15 2 1 0 18,500
Salyut 4 Dec 26, 1974
04:15:00 UTC
Feb 3, 1977 770 92 4 2 1 18,500
Salyut 5 Jun 22, 1976
18:04:00 UTC
Aug 8, 1977 412 67 4 2 0 19,000
Salyut 6 Sep 29, 1977
06:50:00 UTC
Jul 29, 1982 1,764 683 33 16 14 19,000
Salyut 7 Apr 19, 1982
19:45:00 UTC
Feb 7, 1991 3,216 816 26 12 15 19,000
Mir Feb 19, 1986
21:28:23 UTC
Mar 23, 2001
05:50:00 UTC
5,511 4,594 137 39 68 124,340
ISS Nov 20, 1998
21:28:23 UTC
2,165 1,452 130 25 18 187,016
Space station Launched Reentered In orbit Occupied Total crew
and visitors
Manned Unmanned Mass
Days in use Visits


In fiction

Deep Space 9 is a well known space station in the Star Trek story line. It was built by the Cardassians around Bajor and later staffed by Federation personnel .



Last updated: 02-07-2005 05:30:54
Last updated: 05-02-2005 12:00:47