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
International Space Station leftover USOS hardware and '"Zvezda" 2' as a refuelling depot and service station located at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, L1 or L2. The entire USOS cannot be reused and will be discarded, but some Russian modules are planned to be reused. "Nauka", the Uzlovoy Module, two science power platforms and "Rassvet", launched between 2010 and 2015 and joined to the ROS, may be separated to form OPSEK. "Nauka" will be used in the station, whose main goal is supporting manned deep space exploration. OPSEK will orbit at a higher inclination of 71 degrees, allowing observation to and from