One of the greatest assets of mankind is the international space station, or ISS. Several states united for its creation and operation in orbit: Russia, some European countries, Canada, Japan and the USA. This apparatus testifies that much can be achieved if countries constantly cooperate. All the people of the planet know about this station, and many are wondering at what altitude the ISS flies and in what orbit. How many astronauts have been there? Is it true that tourists are allowed there? And this is not all that is interesting to mankind.
Station structure
The ISS consists of fourteen modules, which contain laboratories, warehouses, rest rooms, bedrooms, utility rooms. The station even has a gym with exercise equipment. The whole complex is solar powered. They are huge, the size of a stadium.
Facts about the ISS
During its work, the station caused a lot of admiration. This apparatus is greatest achievement human minds. By its design, purpose and features, it can be called perfection. Of course, maybe in 100 years on Earth they will begin to build spaceships of a different plan, but so far, today, this apparatus is the property of mankind. This is evidenced by the following facts about the ISS:
- During its existence, about two hundred astronauts have visited the ISS. There were also tourists who simply flew in to look at the Universe from an orbital height.
- The station is visible from Earth with the naked eye. This design is the largest among artificial satellites, and it can be easily seen from the surface of the planet without any magnifying device. There are maps on which you can see at what time and when the device flies over the cities. They make it easy to find information about your locality: View the flight schedule over the region.
- To assemble the station and maintain it in working condition, the astronauts went out more than 150 times in outer space having spent about a thousand hours there.
- The apparatus is operated by six astronauts. The life support system ensures the continuous presence of people at the station from the moment of its first launch.
- The International Space Station is a unique place where a wide variety of laboratory experiments are carried out. Scientists make unique discoveries in the field of medicine, biology, chemistry and physics, physiology and meteorological observations, as well as in other areas of science.
- The device uses giant solar panels, the size of which reaches the area of the football field with its end zones. Their weight is almost three hundred thousand kilograms.
- Batteries are capable of fully ensuring the operation of the station. Their work is closely monitored.
- The station has a mini-house equipped with two bathrooms and a gym.
- The flight is monitored from Earth. Programs consisting of millions of lines of code have been developed for control.
astronauts
Since December 2017, the ISS crew consists of the following astronomers and astronauts:
- Anton Shkaplerov - ISS-55 commander. He visited the station twice - in 2011-2012 and in 2014-2015. For 2 flights, he lived at the station for 364 days.
- Skeet Tingle - Flight engineer, NASA astronaut. This astronaut has no space flight experience.
- Norishige Kanai is a Japanese astronaut and flight engineer.
- Alexander Misurkin. Its first flight was made in 2013 with a duration of 166 days.
- Makr Vande Hay has no flying experience.
- Joseph Akaba. The first flight was made in 2009 as part of Discovery, and the second flight was carried out in 2012.
earth from space
From outer space, unique views open up to Earth. This is evidenced by photographs, videos of astronauts and cosmonauts. You can see the work of the station, space landscapes if you watch online broadcasts from the ISS station. However, some cameras are turned off due to technical work.
We are talking about the fact that any object located in close proximity to the Earth is affected by its gravitational force. And if so, then it cannot stay in its orbit for a long time, and it will certainly fall to the surface if it does not burn out in the upper atmosphere before that. The same fate, in theory, should befall the ISS, which is located at a distance of 400 kilometers from the surface of the planet. But even such a solid distance cannot save the space station from the force of the earth's gravity. But then how is it kept in a stationary orbit for such a long time?
Let's first understand what the International Space Station is. This is a complex modular design, weighing 400 tons. If we talk about its size, then they are about the same as an American football field. It took 13 years to assemble such a structure. During this time, a lot of work has been done, which includes: numerous launches of Progress space cargo ships, American Shuttle, astronauts' spacewalks. IN currently the cost of the international space station is more than 150 billion US dollars. There are six cosmonauts at the station, who are representatives of different countries of the world.
But let's return to our original question, and try to figure out why the station, under the influence of gravitational forces, does not fall to the surface of the Earth.
In fact, she is slowly falling. During the year, its decline reaches two kilometers. And if not for the correction of the orbit, then we would have said goodbye to it long ago. It is timely adjustment that allows the ISS to remain in a stationary orbit. You will not believe, but such a complex and heavy structure has the highest mobility. It can change the parameters of the orbit, move in all directions, and even turn over if necessary, in order, for example, to dodge various space objects, including space debris.
All movements are carried out using special engines called gyrodines. There are four at the station. In order to orient the station or correct its orbit, a command comes from the Earth to launch them, after which the station begins its movement. A special operator is responsible for such a responsible operation. His responsibility includes not only timely correction of the ISS orbit, but also ensuring its safety in order to prevent collisions with meteorites and space debris. Similar boosters and engines are available on Progress cargo spacecraft that dock to the ISS. With their help, you can also adjust its orbit.
The operator also monitors the mass of the station. Without this, it is impossible to accurately calculate the herodyne thrust, which should not be less than 1 m/s. The mass of the station is constantly changing. As a rule, this happens at the moment the next Progress cargo ship is docked to it, which delivers a payload on board. Cosmonauts do not take any part in the process of the planned relocation of the station. Everything is controlled by an operator from Earth.
The constant fall of the ISS actually explains why the crew on board is in zero gravity, despite the fact that gravity is present inside the station. Since the falling speed of the ISS is compensated, the astronauts, while inside the station, actually do not move anywhere. They just float. Nevertheless, the ISS from time to time still decreases, approaching the Earth. To compensate for this, the station's control center adjusts its orbit by briefly starting the engines and bringing it to its previous height.
On the ISS, the Sun rises every 90 minutes.
Sunrise on the ISS.
The International Space Station makes one complete revolution around the Earth every 90 minutes. Thanks to this, her crew observes the sunrise every 90 minutes. Every day, people on board the ISS see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets. Astronauts who spend 342 days at the station manage to see 5472 sunrises and 5472 sunsets. During the same time, a person on Earth will see only 342 sunrises and 342 sunsets.
It should be understood that the ISS crew does not need a daily change of clothes, as we do on Earth. Except for exercise (which we'll talk about below), astronauts on the ISS don't have to work as hard in microgravity. Body temperature on the ISS is also monitored. All of this allows people to wear the same clothes for up to four days before they decide to change.
Russia occasionally launches unmanned spacecraft to deliver new supplies to the ISS. These ships can only fly in one direction and cannot return to Earth (at least in one piece). As soon as they dock at the ISS, the station crew unloads the delivered supplies, and then fills the empty spacecraft with various debris, waste and dirty clothes. Then the device undocks and falls to Earth. The ship itself and everything on board burns in the sky over the Pacific Ocean.
The ISS crew is doing a lot
Orbit training.
The crew of the International Space Station is constantly losing bone and muscle mass. , they lose about two percent of stocks minerals in the bones of the limbs. It doesn't sound like much, but the number is growing fast. A typical mission to the ISS can take up to 6 months. As a result, some crew members may lose up to 1/4 of their bone mass in some parts of their skeleton.
Space agencies are trying to find a way to reduce these losses by forcing the crew to do two hours of daily exercise. Despite this, astronauts still lose muscle and bone mass. Since virtually every astronaut who is regularly sent to the ISS trains, the space agencies do not have control groups with which to determine the effectiveness of such training.
The simulators on the orbital station are also different from those we are used to using on Earth. The difference in gravity dictates the need to use only special simulators for physical exercises.
The use of the toilet depends on the nationality of the crew
A toilet in orbit is no easy task.
In the early days of the International Space Station, astronauts and cosmonauts used and shared the same equipment, apparatus, food, and even toilets. Everything began to change around 2003, after Russia began demanding payment from other countries for their astronauts to use their equipment. In turn, other countries began to demand payment from Russia for the fact that its astronauts use their equipment.
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The situation escalated in 2005, when Russia began to take money from NASA for the delivery of American astronauts to the ISS. The United States, in return, banned Russian astronauts from using American equipment, apparatus, and toilets.
Russia may close the ISS program
Russia does not have the ability to directly prohibit the US or any other country that participated in the creation of the ISS, the use of the station. However, it can block access to the station indirectly. As mentioned above, America needs Russia in order to deliver its astronauts to the ISS. In 2014, Dmitry Rogozin hinted that, starting in 2020, Russia plans to spend money and resources allocated to the space program on other projects. The United States, in turn, wants to continue on the ISS until at least 2024.
If Russia reduces or even stops the use of the ISS by 2020, then this will be a serious problem for American astronauts, as they will be limited or even denied access to the ISS. Rogozin added that Russia would be able to fly to the ISS even without the United States, while the United States, in turn, does not have such a luxury.
NASA is actively working with commercial space companies to transport and return US astronauts from the ISS. At the same time, NASA can always use the trampolines that Rogozin mentioned earlier.
There are weapons on board the ISS
There are weapons behind these walls.
Usually there are one or two guns on board the International Space Station. They belong to the astronauts, but are stored in a "survival kit" that everyone on the station has access to. Each pistol has three barrels and , rifle rounds, and shotgun rounds. They are also equipped with folding elements that can be used as a shovel or knife.
It is not clear why astronauts keep such multifunctional pistols on board the ISS. Isn't it really to fight off aliens? However, it is known for certain that in 1965 some astronauts had to deal with aggressive wild bears who decided to taste people who returned from space to Earth. It is possible that the station has weapons just for such cases.
Chinese taikunauts denied access to the ISS
There are no Chinese on the ISS
Chinese taikunauts are banned from visiting the International Space Station due to sanctions imposed on China by the United States. In 2011, the US Congress banned any cooperation on space programs between the US and China.
The ban was prompted by fears that the Chinese space program is behind the scenes for militaristic purposes. The United States, in turn, does not want to help the Chinese military and engineers in any way, so the ISS is banned for China.
According to Time, this is a very unreasonable solution to the issue. The US government needs to understand that a ban on China's use of the ISS, as well as a ban on any cooperation between the US and China on the development of space programs, will not stop the latter from developing its own space program. China has already sent its tycoonauts into space, as well as robots to the moon. In addition, the Celestial Empire plans to build a new space station, as well as send its rover to Mars.
Or why satellites don't fall? A satellite's orbit is a delicate balance between inertia and gravity. The force of gravity continuously pulls the satellite towards the Earth, while the inertia of the satellite tends to keep its motion in a straight line. If there were no gravity, the satellite's inertia would send it straight out of Earth's orbit into outer space. However, at every point in the orbit, gravity keeps the satellite tethered.
To achieve a balance between inertia and gravity, the satellite must have a strictly defined speed. If it flies too fast, the inertia overcomes gravity and the satellite leaves orbit. (The calculation of the so-called second space velocity, which allows the satellite to leave Earth orbit, plays an important role in launching interplanetary space stations.) If the satellite moves too slowly, gravity will win the fight against inertia and the satellite will fall to Earth. This is exactly what happened in 1979, when the American space station Skylab began to descend as a result of the growing resistance of the upper layers. earth's atmosphere. Having fallen into the iron tongs of gravity, the station soon fell to Earth.
Speed and distance
Since the Earth's gravity weakens with distance, the speed required to keep a satellite in orbit changes with altitude. Engineers can calculate how fast and how high a satellite needs to orbit. For example, a geostationary satellite, always located above the same point on the earth's surface, must make one revolution in 24 hours (which corresponds to the time of one revolution of the Earth around its axis) at an altitude of 357 kilometers.
Gravity and inertia
Balancing a satellite between gravity and inertia can be simulated by rotating a load on a rope tied to it. The inertia of the load tends to move it away from the center of rotation, while the tension of the rope, acting as gravity, keeps the load in a circular orbit. If the rope is cut, the load will fly away along a straight trajectory perpendicular to the radius of its orbit.
The size of the ISS is sufficient for its observation naked eye from the surface of the earth. The station is seen as highly bright Star, rapidly flying across the sky from west to east (angular velocity of about 4 degrees per minute). However, you can watch it not everywhere and not always, even if you do it in the dark. Since the orbit of the International Space Station is constantly changing (we will consider the factors affecting this below), in order to clarify the places on Earth where the ISS can be observed at a certain point in time, you need to watch this website or website Roscosmos. And these changes in observation areas are happening, which is why ...
Firstly, the ISS can be located at an altitude of 280 to 460 kilometers. Even in such a high orbit, it constantly experiences the braking effect of the upper, very rarefied layers of the Earth's atmosphere. Yes, yes, and in the near space there are particles of air! Every day, the ISS loses about 5 cm / s of its speed and about 100 meters of height. Therefore, periodically it is necessary to raise the station, burning the fuel of Progress space trucks and other incoming ships. And why can't the station be immediately raised higher to avoid these costs?
The fact is that the range laid down during the design and the current real position of the orbit are determined by several reasons.
First, daily our cosmonauts, as well as astronauts from other countries (USA, Europe, Canada, Japan, etc.) receive fairly high doses of radiation in this orbit. But beyond the mark of 500 km, its level rises sharply and it becomes simply deadly
By the way, the Soviet crew of Belyaev and Leonov almost died in 1965, when, contrary to calculations, their spaceship"Voskhod-2" was thrown into orbit 495 kilometers, so that the USSR could get two dead astronauts instead of the heroic Leonov spacewalk.
The half-year stay limit for astronauts is set at just 1/2 sievert, while only a sievert is allowed for an entire space career (each sievert of radiation exposure increases the risk of cancer by 5.5 percent).
On Earth, people are protected from deadly cosmic rays by the radiation belt of our planet's magnetosphere and its atmosphere, but in near space the protection is already much weaker. In some parts of the orbit (the South Atlantic anomaly, for example, is such a patch of increased radiation), strange effects can sometimes appear: in humans, when closed eyes flashes appear. It is believed that cosmic particles pass through the eyeball. This can not only interfere with sleep, but once again unpleasantly reminds you of high level radiation on the ISS.
In addition, the Russian Soyuz and Progress, which are now the main crew change and supply ships, are certified to operate at an altitude of up to 460 km. The higher the ISS is, the correspondingly less cargo can be delivered. But, on the other hand, the lower the ISS “hangs”, the more it slows down, that is, more of the delivered cargo should be fuel for the subsequent correction of the orbit.
Plus (or rather, minus) - before the ISS was not exposed to heights even of 390-400 km, since American shuttles could not rise to such an orbit. Therefore, the station was kept at altitudes of 330-350 km by more frequent periodic corrections by engines. Due to the end of the shuttle flight program in 2014, this restriction was finally lifted.
Scientific tasks can thus be carried out most ideally at an altitude of 400-460 kilometers. This is why the average orbital altitude of the ISS is currently approximately 420 km. Naturally, the higher the altitude, the greater part of the Earth can simultaneously observe the station. True, in this case, its apparent value will also fall!
Finally, space debris also affects the position of the station: failed rockets, satellites, their fragments, which have a huge speed relative to the ISS, which makes a collision with them destructive.
Spacecraft located at the rear of the station can accelerate the ISS: these are Progress trucks (mostly) and ATV (less often), if necessary, the Zvezda service module and Cygnus (extremely rare). The station is raised frequently and slightly: the correction occurs approximately once a month in small portions (about 900 seconds of engine operation), and the rise itself can reach, for example, 100-200 meters.
Some parameters of the orbit are dictated not only by technical features, but also by political realities. spacecraft when launched from the Earth, it is possible to give any orientation, but the most economical will be to use the speed that the rotation of the Earth gives. Thus, it is cheaper to launch a vehicle into an orbit with an inclination equal to the latitude. Any maneuvers and transition to a different slope will require additional fuel consumption: more for moving towards the equator, less for moving towards the poles. An ISS orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees may seem strange: NASA spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral traditionally have an inclination of about 28 degrees. This is because when the location of the future ISS station was discussed in the late nineties, the decision was made to accept Russian orbital parameters. However, if the Baikonur Cosmodrome is located at a latitude of approximately 46 degrees, why then is it common for Russian launches to have an inclination of 51.6°?! The point here is solely that there are neighbors to the east (Mongolia and China), which, of course, will not be happy if something starts falling on them from space. And with regular rocket launches, this would happen all the time ...
Watching the ISS station flying across our sky as a bright star always delights and delights. Indeed, today it is the main space achievement of mankind, successfully operating for more than 20 years. Let's believe that the International Space Station will give the greatest possible positive balance from its existence. And, of course, even if one day, when the resource of the nodes included in it is completely exhausted, the current ISS will be replaced by a new similar, even more advanced project. international cooperation. After all, Space can only be mastered by the efforts of all states and people of the Earth!
Alexey Korolyov, cosmonautics historian
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