The International Space Station is a crewed laboratory in low Earth orbit, built in space from modules by several space agencies and continuously occupied.
About The International Space Station
The station is a partnership of NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency. It was assembled piece by piece in orbit, and crews have lived aboard without a break ever since the first long-stay crew arrived, carrying out research in medicine, biology and materials science in near weightlessness.
It orbits low enough to circle the Earth many times a day. Seen from the ground near dawn or dusk, sunlight catches its solar arrays and it crosses the sky as a bright, steady point, among the brightest objects in the night sky.
What you see in the piece
The piece flies it on its current orbit from live tracking data, at the bottom of the zoom just above the Earth’s surface. It shines only when sunlit, as the real station does.
Questions
Can you see the ISS from Earth?
Yes. It looks like a bright star moving steadily across the sky, best seen shortly after sunset or before sunrise.
How high is the International Space Station?
It flies in low Earth orbit, just above the atmosphere and far below the Moon.