125 manned flights were performed under the station's program, Roscosmos added.
MOSCOW, November 2. /tass/. About 290 people from 26 countries have been on board the International Space Station during its operation. This was announced by Roscosmos on the 25th anniversary of the arrival of the crew of the first long-term expedition to the station, after which the orbital laboratory became permanently habitable.
"Representatives of 26 countries worked on the ISS <...> Out of 290 people - 239 men and 51 women," the state corporation said in a statement. It is noted that 125 manned flights were performed under the station's program - 71 Soyuz spacecraft, 37 Space Shuttle flights, 16 Crew Dragon missions and one manned Boeing Starliner flight.
The starting point of the ISS's existence is considered to be November 20, 1998, when its first module, Zarya, was launched into space. For almost two years, the station was retrofitted with the Unity and Zvezda modules, and continuous operation of the space house began on November 2, 2000, when the Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft arrived at the station.
"The crew of the first long-term expedition (ISS-1) has boarded the ISS: cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergey Krikalev, as well as the first commander of the ISS, NASA astronaut William Shepherd. Since then, crews from Russia, the United States and astronauts from other countries have been continuously working on the ISS for a quarter of a century," Roscosmos said.
Today, the crew of the space house consists of seven people who are transported to the station on Russian Soyuz MS and American Crew Dragon. "Since 2022, a cross-flight program has been in effect, when all American ships flying to the ISS for crew rotation necessarily include a Roscosmos cosmonaut, and a NASA astronaut as part of the Russian crew," the state corporation noted.
According to the ISS program, 277 spacewalks have been performed over 25 years, 75 of them from the Russian segment, and 202 from the American segment. For a quarter of a century, 157 cosmonauts and astronauts from 10 countries have managed to work outside the orbital laboratory. The longest outing - 8 hours and 56 minutes - was performed by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms in 2001, and NASA astronaut Michael Lopez Alegria holds the record for the longest duration of extravehicular activity.
Ships and modules
The International Space Station has been orbiting the Earth for almost 27 years. On November 20, 1998, its first module was launched, the Zarya functional cargo unit, developed by the Khrunichev Center under a contract with the American company Boeing.
In the early years, the ISS crew was changed only on shuttles that could not stay in space for more than three weeks. The Soyuz, which could fly for six months and accommodate three people, took on the role of rescue ships, on which the crew could evacuate in case of a critical emergency. In 2011, the shuttles stopped flying to the ISS, and the development of new American manned spacecraft was greatly delayed. In this regard, until November 2020, international crews flew to the station only by Russian Soyuz.
Today, the ISS consists of 16 modules belonging to the Russian and American segments. The Russian segment includes Zarya, the Zvezda service module, the small research modules Poisk and Rassvet, as well as the multipurpose laboratory module Nauka and the nodal module Prichal. The American segment includes the nodal modules Unity, Harmony and Tranquility, the Destiny laboratory module, the Quest airlock, the Cupola survey module, the multifunctional Leonardo and the BEAM inflatable module. Two more modules are also included in this segment - the European Columbus and the Japanese Kibo.
