Explore NASA’s space laboratory for the International Space Station from every angle in this panorama.
This 360° panorama lets you explore the International Space Station’s fourth module, Destiny. Launched on 7 February 2001 on Space Shuttle Atlantis, the American module is the heart of the non-Russian part of the Station according to ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (who took the pictures to create this view). The module allows experiments to be performed in many disciplines, from biology to physics, including a rack for burning liquids in weightlessness and the European Microgravity Science Glovebox.
Explore Destiny in Flickr, Facebook or YouTube format with your mobile phone and virtual-reality headset, or take the full tour including all Space Station modules with videos and extra information below. We will release a new Space Station module in 360° every week on Thursday.
Explore the heart of the Russian segment of the International Space Station in this global view.
This 360° panorama allows you to explore the International Space Station’s third module, Zvezda. Launched on 12 July 2000, the Russian module supplies life support for the Station and crewquarters. All five of Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicles docked with the module.
The images to create this view were taken by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti during her Futura mission in 2015; the cosmonaut in the picture is Gennady Padalka.
Explore Zvezda in Flickr, Facebook or YouTube format with your mobile phone and virtual-reality headset, or take the full tour including all Space Station modules with videos and extra information below. We will release a new Space Station module in 360° every week on Thursday.
Explore the Space Station’s first module with your mobile phone or virtual-reality headset
This 360° video allows you to explore the International Space Station’s first module, Zarya. Launched on 20 November 1998, it was joined three weeks later by the US Unity module. Also known as the Functional Cargo Block, the module is now mainly used for storage.
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took the pictures to form these images in June 2015 at the end of her 199-day Futura mission.
Explore this module in Flickr, Facebook or Youtube format with your mobile phone or take the full International Space Station tour on the ESA website with videos and extra information.
On Dec. 11 aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, bid farewell to crew members remaining on the station — including Commander Scott Kelly, NASA’s one-year mission astronaut. The returning members of Expedition 45 then climbed aboard their Soyuz spacecraft for the trip back to Earth. They safely touched down hours later in Kazakhstan – closing out a 141-day stay in space. Also, Next space station crew prepares for launch, Supply mission arrives at space station, Quantum computing lab and more!
“11,2 km/s” is the official theme music for ESA’s Estrack ground station network. It was composed by Gautier Acher, a 17-year-old student living in Paris, France, and entered in the 2015 Tracking Station Music Contest, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Estrack network.
Gautier’s top-ranked entry was selected from a field 117 submissions received from over a dozen countries.
Gautier wrote: This track is a triptych that shows space is vast, but is full of interesting things, such as humankind, stars, comets, planets… It describes great achievements, in the past, and in the future.
While only three entrants could win prizes in the music contest, and only 10 could be at the top, the ESA judging panel praised all 117 submissions.
Judges commented that, “We heard some marvellous stuff created by people who are passionate, motivated and imaginative in their pursuit of music that reflects the central themes of exploration into our Universe, technological excellence and the dreams of humanity’s journeys into space.”
In 1975, the ground station at Villafranca in Spain became the kernel of the ESA tracking network, which now comprises 10 stations in seven countries and in 2015 celebrates four decades of providing links to space for ESA’s science, Earth, observatory and exploration missions.
Since inception, Estrack has expanded worldwide and today employs cutting-edge technology to link mission controllers with spacecraft orbiting Earth, voyaging deep in our Solar System and anywhere in between (more information in our Estrack web site http://www.esa.int/estrack).
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA took time out of their work schedule to talk to Sebastian Stan and Mackenzie Davis, cast members of the new movie “The Martian”, during a visit they made to Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center, Houston Sept. 15. They were joined by JSC Director Ellen Ochoa. Kelly is at the midway point of a year-long mission aboard the orbital laboratory with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), gathering valuable biomedical data that will be used in the formulation of a future human mission to Mars. Lindgren, who is a medical doctor, is beginning the third month of a five-month mission on the outpost.
Aboard the International Space Station, the Expedition 45 crew – including new Commander Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren of NASA, said goodbye to Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency (Kazcosmos) as the trio climbed aboard their Soyuz spacecraft for the return trip to Earth. The Soyuz landed safely in Kazakhstan on Sept. 11 Eastern time, Sept. 12 in Kazakhstan — closing out a 168-day mission for Padalka and an 8-day stay on the station for Mogensen and Aimbetov. Also, First Orion crew module segments welded, SLS Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter, New Ceres imagery, New Horizons update, 9/11 tribute and National Preparedness Month!
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti shows how to use the most unglamorous but often asked-about part of living on the International Space Station: the toilet.
A fan creates suction to avoid smells and floating waste. Solid waste is stored and put in cargo ferries to burn up when the spacecraft leaves the Space Station. The astronaut urine is recycled – into drinking water.
Join ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti as she shows how astronauts on the International Space Station keep clean.
From soap to water and cutting your nails, everything is different in space. Samantha demonstrates her ways to ‘shower’ depending on how much time she has.
The astronauts on the Space Station spend as much time as possible on science. During her 40-hour working week Samantha runs many experiments from Italy’s ASI space agency and ESA, and takes part in even more from scientists all over the world.
Samantha is living and working on board the International Space Station as part of the six-strong Expedition 42 and 43 crew. Follow her Futura mission at http://samanthacristoforetti.esa.int.
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti running experiments in weightlessness during her Futura mission for scientists from all over the world. The International Space Station offers three state-of-the-art laboratories where research can be done without gravity. The European Columbus laboratory, the Japanese Kibo and the American Destiny module offer facilities for physics, biology, geophysics and medicine.
Samantha’s 40-hour work week is devoted to science and maintaining the weightless research centre. This video gives a fast-track impression of some of the experiments she worked on. In quick succession we see Samantha working on: exercise machine ARED, measuring her body mass, the robotic droids SPHERES, ESA’s microgravity glovebox, muscle-measurement machine MARES, centrifuge-incubator Kubik, Biolab, Materials Science Laboratory and ejecting miniature satellites called Cubesats into space.
Outside the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA conducted their third spacewalk in eight days March 1 to install antennas and communications gear that will be used to provide rendezvous and navigational information to visiting vehicles approaching the complex in the future, including the new U.S. commercial crew vehicles. Wilmore and Virts installed about 400 feet of cable along the truss of the station as part of the new Common Communications for Visiting Vehicles (C2V2) system. In two previous spacewalks on Feb. 21 and Feb. 25, the two astronauts rigged cables for new International Docking Adapter ports that will be delivered to the complex this year and lubricated the grappling end of the Canadian-built Canadarm2 robotic arm.
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA discussed their mission and life and research on the complex during an in-flight chat Jan. 21 with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, officials of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and middle and high school students. The unique discussion was part of the third annual State of Science Technology, Engineering and Math event (SoSTEM), a type of science fair that included students from schools in Maryland, Virginia and Washington.
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency discussed the progress of their research, other work on the orbital outpost and upcoming spacewalks in February by Wilmore and Virts in a pair of in-flight interviews Jan. 6 with the Associated Press and KGO-TV, San Francisco. Wilmore has been aboard the complex since September, while Virts and Cristoforetti arrived on the station in late November
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson of NASA discussed life and research on the orbital outpost during an in-flight interview July 17 with KDVR-TV in Denver. Swanson, who is a native of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, arrived on the station in late March, became station commander in May and will remain in orbit until mid-September when he will return to Earth in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 39 Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson of NASA discussed their daily work and research on the orbital laboratory with students at Boise State University in Idaho and educators, including former educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan, during an in-flight educational event May 6. Mastracchio is in the final week of his six-month mission on the station, heading for a landing in his Soyuz return craft in Kazakhstan on May 13, U.S. time. Swanson, who will become station commander on May 12, will remain aboard the complex until mid-September.
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford of NASA, Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA and Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency fielded questions from social media during a Google Plus hangout February 22, the first for the station. The three astronauts answered questions from the online community who have been interested to watch and ask questions to astronauts both on orbit and on the ground. People from around the world were able to view the Hangout live on NASA’s YouTube channel and were invited to ask questions by uploading a video question to YouTube with the hashtag #askISS, as well as from followers on Google Plus or Twitter, who were able to ask a question in advance of or during the event using the hashtag #askNASA, or on NASA’s Facebook page.
In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The tour includes scenes of each of the station’s modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.
You, together with your 500 million fellow citizens from ESA’s 20* European member nations, are the collective owners of one of the world’s leading space agencies.
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation, a cooperative coming together of its Member States in their national interest and common good.
This new video offers a quick introduction: Europe, meet ESA.
A breathtaking collection of photos taken by ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli during his 6-month MagISStra mission on the International Space Station 25 December 2010 – 24 May 2011.
Music: Dream Elements by Green Sun licensed by Ambient Music Garden.
Video produced for Lufthansa inflight entertainment (released June 2011).
ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers invites you to follow a guided tour of the complete International Space Station. Andre himself is the tour guide during this unique visit to the Station.
In the space of one hour Andre shows every module of the International Space Station and explains the ins and outs of living in the largest laboratory in space. This video gives a wonderful glimpse of how life is for an astronaut living in the Station. From science and maintenance to operating robotic arms and finding lost equipment, Andre takes you from the Japanese research module via the Station’s cellar and ‘garden’ to the Russian segment, ending his tour with breath-taking views of Earth from the European-built Cupola observation module.
This video was recorded during the end of ESA’s PromISSe mission. Andre spent a total of 193 days in space before returning to Earth on 1 July 2012.
Boldly going where no private company has gone before.
On 25 May 2012 the first commercial spacecraft berthed with the International Space Station. A private company achieved something only national agencies have ever done before: flying and recovering an orbital craft. With private companies launching their own spaceships and designing their own orbital stations, it’s the dawn of commercial spacefaring.
We talk to people involved in that development and we explore the world’s first commercial spaceport.
Within Temptation is the internationally known symphonic rock band, founded in the Netherlands in 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and guitarist Robert Westerholt. The band members are interested in all things science-fiction and space-related, and have been following the PromISSe mission of ESA astronaut André Kuipers. When they heard that three of their songs (“Faster”, “Mother Earth” and “The Promise”) had been included in André’s playlist to be played in space, the band were very excited to support his mission. They helped us to produce this video, recording a special message and dedicating their song “Faster” to André, wishing him a high-speed but safe return later this week. Within Temptation are Sharon den Adel, Robert Westerholt, Stefan Helleblad, Jeroen van Veen, Ruud Jolie, Martijn Spierenburg and Mike Coolen.
More information at: www.within-temptation.com
Thanks to the ORTS for the live band footage. Video copyright ESA/Within Temptation. Faster written by S. den Adel, R. Westerholt & D. Gibson. Video produced by ESA/J. Makinen.
ESA astronaut and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) ambassador André Kuipers and his Expedition 31 crewmate, NASA astronaut Don Pettit, took part in a video call with the WWF annual meeting that took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands on 8 May 2012.
WWF representatives worldwide heard what André and Don had to say about our planet. Their unique vantage point on the International Space Station and ESA’s Earth observation satellites help us understand how fragile our planet is.
The Dutch branch of the WWF — Wereld Natuur Fonds — is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
The European Space Agency has successfully launched its third Automated Transfer Vehicle. The cargo ferry, named Edoardo Amaldi for the Italian physicist and spaceflight pioneer, was sent on its way to the International Space Station atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The ATV brings essential supplies and propellant to the ISS, as well as the ability to re-boost the station’s altitude. ATV Edoardo Amaldi follows the two highly successful supply missions carried out by ATV Jules Verne in March 2008 and ATV Johannes Kepler in February of last year. Also, members of the International Space Station’s Expedition 32 crew discuss their upcoming mission aboard the orbiting laboratory with the media, Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center test fire a scaled down solid rocket booster for NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, the 100th anniversary of the birth of a space pioneer and more!
Inside the International Space Station, Expedition 25 commander Doug Wheelock gave a tour of the Russian segment of the orbiting complex, including the Soyuz spacecraft docked there. Wheelock showed off the station’s HAM radio, using the call sign “NA1SS,” to talk with people on the ground as the station flies overhead at 17,500 miles per hour. Wheelock, and Flight Engineers Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchickin all will return home to Earth this Thursday, Nov. 25.
As the International Space Station Program completes 10 years of continuous human presence, administrators and former crewmembers discuss its past, present and future. The first residents, astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko came aboard the ISS on Nov. 2, 2000 on Expedition 1.
Highlights of ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang’s 14-day Alissé mission to the International Space Station between 29 August and 12 September 2009. Fuglesang was part of the seven-strong STS-128 crew launched to the ISS with Space Shuttle Discovery. STS-128 delivered new supplies and equipment to the ISS. The crew also performed three spacewalks to continue Station construction.
Space Shuttle Discovery lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 12 September concluding ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang’s 14-day Alissé mission to the the International Space Station.
ESA astronauts Frank De Winne and Christer Fuglesang met up on the International Space Station in September 2009. Fuglesang was visiting the ISS during his 14-day Alissé mission. De Winne, on his six-month OasISS mission, was already on the ISS as part of the resident ISS Expedition 20 crew.
Frank De Winne is answering a question on the ISS submitted by Herman from Belgium:
– How do you wash your clothes in space?
– Do you use washing powder to wash your clothes in space?
Frank De Winne is answering a question on the ISS submitted by Cedric from Belgium:
– How do you occupy yourself during the 2-day Soyuz journey to the ISS?
– How does food stay fresh in space, since there is no fridge on the ISS?
Frank De Winne is answering a question on the ISS submitted by Mrs. Shahi from Birmingham (United Kingdom): What medical conditions would stop you becoming an astronaut?
The ISS depends on regular deliveries of experiments and spare parts, as well as food, air and water for its permanent crew. ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle is one of the ISS’s indispensable supply spaceships.
Three billion miles away from Earth, near the farthest reaches of our solar system, is the heavenly body with an extreme orbit known for 76 years as Pluto. Discovered by astronomers in 1930, Pluto was considered the ninth planet in our solar system until 2006 — when, after much debate, it was reclassified by the International Astronomical Union as a “dwarf planet,” officially dropping its name — for a number.
Denis Bogan, New Horizons Program Scientist: “Well, it certainly doesnt affect Pluto. Pluto is the same thing it was before it was discovered, before it was given a name, and before the name was changed.”
Nor does Pluto’s reclassification change the importance of NASA’s first mission to study it.
Launch Announcer: “We have ignition and lift off of NASAs New Horizon spacecraft on a decade-long”
Launched in January 2006, the thousand-pound New Horizons spacecraft will travel through space for 9-1/2 years before meeting up with Pluto in the summer of 2015.
Denis Bogan: “The last time Pluto was in this position in its orbit was during the French and Indian War. It takes 248 Earth years to travel around its orbit and come back to the same place again. At the speed of light, sending a radio signal back from the spacecraft, from Pluto to Earth, will take 4-1/2 hours.”
Operating on less power than a pair of common 100-watt light bulbs, New Horizons will map the highest-interest areas of Pluto to a resolution of 50 meters, less than the length of a football field — three billion miles away. Itll then move on to survey Pluto’s neighborhood: the atmosphere, ancient materials and small bodies of the Kuiper Belt, a chaotic region astrophysicists believe can tell us how Earth, the planets, even our sun were made.
Denis Bogan: “We have primitive material chunks of rock and ice, millions of objects of objects out there in the Kuiper Belt and we know very little about it. We didnt discover it until 1992.”
Traveling 3 billion miles to frozen, rocky Pluto and its environs, New Horizon is, in a way, going back in time to the chemical building blocks of the solar system, and life.
To learn more about the New Horizons mission visit www.nasa.gov
The sun is the source of life-sustaining energy here on Earth. Much of how it works – and affects us — remains a source of scientific mystery. Sunspots were first recorded by humans in the 16-hundreds. Astrophysicists have since linked heightened sunspot activity with the solar wind. It’s a million-mile-an-hour force of magnetically-charged particles emanating from the sun’s upper atmosphere. Ebbing and flowing in minimum and maximum intensities over eleven year cycles, this so-called space weather can seriously affect how things work here on Earth, such as disrupting satellite communications, telephone service and personal electronics.
Arik Posner, Program Scientist: “It would help our technology, to safeguard the technology by knowing when and in what intensity space weather occurs and where these effects might show up”
Launch Announcer : “2 -1 ignition and liftoff of Discovery and the Ulysses spacecraft bound for the polar regions of the sun.”
Until the launch of Ulysses from space shuttle Discovery in 1990, data for understanding and predicting space weather had come from a limited sampling area: the plane extending from the suns equator. Ulysses has since made three orbits above and below the poles of the sun, vastly expanding the territory from where raw space weather data are gathered.
Arik Posner: “So Ulysses was really the first spacecraft that leaped out of this confinement, and it gives us a view of the global heliosphere.”
Ulysses has found that the solar minimum were in right now is producing the lowest levels of solar wind seen since accurate readings became available a half-century ago. But for heliophysicists, these data raise as many questions as they answer.
Arik Posner: “The Space Age is only 50 years now, and the Sun just operates on longer time scales than these 50 years. So we might have just glimpsed just the surface of what is really going on.”
By expanding its reach, both in time and space, Ulysses is helping the discipline of space weather prediction grow beyond its infancy for the betterment of life here on Earth.
For more about Ulysses, the heliosphere, and space weather, log onto: www.nasa.gov/missions and click on ‘Ulysses.’
Clouds have forever held the imagination of skygazers who are captivated by their endless beauty and seeming randomness. But clouds, and whats in them, also hold fascination for scientists who seek to understand the many effects they have on life here on Earth.
Hal Maring, Program Scientist, CALIPSO: “Low clouds, which are white, can reflect sunlight and cause cooling of the Earth, and high clouds tend to warm the Earth by absorbing and re-radiating warmth back into the atmosphere.”
Launch Announcer: “2-1 We have ignition and we have lift-off of NASAs Calipso/Cloudsat spacecraft.”
Since its launch in April 2006, the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation mission, CALIPSO, has provided new insight into the role that clouds play in regulating our climate. As CALIPSO orbits the Earth, its light detection and ranging, or lidar system, emits short pulses of green and infrared light, producing a 300-feet wide snapshot of what’s in the atmosphere from top to bottom — clouds and airborne particles. Snapshots collected along the same orbit are then streamed together to paint a picture of what a vertical slice of our atmosphere looks like.
Hal Maring: “Its basically a large laser range finder, and it shoots light down into the atmosphere. And, its able to detect and measure, clouds in the vertical .Not like a photograph, which tends to be two-dimensional, but gives us vertical curtains of measurements of clouds, i.e., their altitude.”
These critical cloud data from CALIPSO are used with information gathered by other satellites in NASAs A-train constellation of Earth-observing spacecraft to quantify just how much sunlight reaches the planet — and how much gets radiated back into space. This so-called energy budget is a key to documenting and understanding climate change.
Hal Maring: “We have found, it appears as though, the Earth is warming and its warming because of an imbalance or a change in the Earths energy budget.”
To see and learn more about CALIPSOs cloud images, or how CALIPSOs also helping scientists understand how climate may be changed by naturally-occurring and manmade particulates in the atmosphere called aerosols, go to www.nasa.gov/missions and click on “CALIPSO.”
Space touches us all on Earth – it is used for protecting our environment, for improving our everyday lives, for safety and security, and for stimulating our need for knowledge. Space is a key asset for Europe to face global challenges, for boosting our economic growth, for building our future.
Space touches us all on Earth – it is used for protecting our environment, for improving our everyday lives, for safety and security, and for stimulating our need for knowledge. Space is a key asset for Europe to face global challenges, for boosting our economic growth, for building our future.
In February 2008, the Columbus module was launched on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, creating space history when it was attached to the International Space Station as the first European laboratory dedicated to long-term research in microgravity.
Capturing the excitement of three highlights of European manned spaceflight in 2007 and 2008, these clips feature Paolo Nespoli’s STS-120 flight, the Columbus laboratory, and finally the ATV Jules Verne, Europe’s first space ferry.
