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
Saturn V weakly captured Earth orbit 31 years later. It left Earth orbit again in June 2003. In 1965, the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) was created to look into science missions that could be performed using Apollo hardware. Much of the planning centered on the idea of a space station. Wernher von Braun's earlier (1964) plans employed a "wet workshop" concept, with a spent S-II Saturn V second stage being launched into orbit and outfitted in space. The next year AAP studied a smaller station using an S-IVB Saturn 1B second stage. By 1969, Apollo funding cuts eliminated the possibility of procuring