MOSCOW: The International Space Station (ISS) has officially completed its 150,000th orbit around Earth, marking a major milestone in its decades-long space mission, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced on Tuesday.
According to Roscosmos, the landmark orbit took place between 1:32 PM and 3:05 PM Moscow time, during which the station flew from Indonesia’s Sumatra Island to the Indian Ocean. Since its launch in 1998, the ISS has covered an astonishing 6.4 billion kilometres—a distance 30 times the journey from Earth to Mars and nearly reaching Pluto’s orbit.
The ISS, a joint project involving NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA, and CSA, has been a hub for scientific research and international cooperation in space. It completes 16 orbits around Earth daily, providing invaluable data for future deep-space exploration.
Launched on November 20, 1998, with the Zarya cargo module as its foundation, the ISS has expanded over the years, serving as a floating laboratory for cutting-edge experiments in microgravity.
This milestone highlights the ISS’s enduring role in human space exploration, paving the way for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
