What is the International Space Station? - Navo

• The International Space Station is a space exploration and research platform that astronauts go to, that is orbiting more than 350 kilometers above the earth!
• 16 countries joined together in one of the largest - EVER non-military co-operations to build it! The 16 countries were Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The United States all lent a hand. It's the size of a football field and has more mass than 400,000 kilograms (881,846 pounds).
• It was hard to put together the parts so it was built piece by piece. The first parts were launched in 1998, the Russian built, American - owned Zarya Cargo Block and the American Unity Node. The Zarya was the first part so it housed everything, today it is used mostly for storage. The next part was the Zvezda and it provides life support and living quarters for two people.
• A bunch of other parts were added later, like the U.S. Destiny laboratory, and the Canadian Canadarm2, a huge robotic arm that helps build and maintain the ISS. In 2008, the Kibo, or the Japanese Experiment Module was added to the ISS. Then in 2009 the last big four solar arrays was connected. 
• Currently, astronauts come and go in shifts of six months. The station is now complete in many years of effort.