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
Lissajous orbit , and also the Genesis mission collecting solar particles at . On 14 May 2009, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched into space the Herschel and Planck observatories, both of which use Lissajous orbits at Sun–Earth . ESA's current Gaia mission also uses a Lissajous orbit at Sun–Earth . In 2011, NASA transferred two of its THEMIS spacecraft from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit by way of Earth-Moon and Lissajous orbits. China's lunar orbiter Chang'e 2 left lunar orbit on June 8, 2011 and was placed in a Lissajous orbit at Earth-Sun until mid-2012 prior to leaving Earth orbit entirely