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
Low Earth orbit filings. This orbit, referred to as "VLEO", requires the use of novel technologies for orbit raising because they operate in orbits that would ordinarily decay too soon to be economically useful. A low Earth orbit requires the lowest amount of energy for satellite placement. It provides high bandwidth and low communication latency. Satellites and space stations in LEO are more accessible for crew and servicing. Since it requires less energy to place a satellite into a LEO, and a satellite there needs less powerful amplifiers for successful transmission, LEO is used for many communication applications, such as the Iridium phone