The International Space Station

For the past 20 years, people around the world have been able to watch the International Space Station (ISS or Station) appear as a small dot of light racing across the sky on a clear night. What may seem small is a football-field-sized home to one of humanity’s most expensive feats of engineering; the ISS is a laboratory and a habitat that serves as the first step toward a multigenerational race to occupy celestial bodies across the solar system permanently. A tribute to the synergistic, intercontinental friendships formed to advance humanity, the ISS has fostered one of the most enduring partnerships between the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Russia.