International Space Station Russian space station called OPSEK. The ISS is the ninth space station to be inhabited by crews, following the Soviet and later Russian "Salyut", "Almaz", and "Mir" stations as well as "Skylab" from the US. The station has been continuously occupied for since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000. This is the longest continuous human presence in low Earth orbit, having surpassed the previous record of held by "Mir". It has been visited by astronauts, cosmonauts and space tourists from 17 different nations. After the American Space Shuttle programme ended in 2011, Soyuz rockets became the only
Assembly of the International Space Station combinations. The last two Shuttle flights added one of the two final elements of ISS, followed by a Proton launch to deliver the European Robotic Arm in 2019. Other assembly flights consisted of modules lifted by the Russian Proton rocket or in the case of Pirs and Poisk by a Soyuz-U rocket. Some of the larger modules include: The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately , a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit (the actual height varies over time by several kilometers due to atmospheric drag and reboosts). It orbits