BUILD · SPACE STATIONS · ISS
The largest structure humans have ever built off Earth — a 109-metre truss carrying eight solar wings and a village of pressurized modules, orbiting 400 km up at 28,000 km/h.
Three ways to know it. Realisticfloats NASA's own model of the station over a living Earth. Engineering lets you take it apart — separate the eight solar wings, drop the module stack and swing out Canadarm2, recolour it by material, x-ray the racks inside Destiny, then cut the radiators and watch it bake. And the Cupola puts you inside the seven-window dome, watching Earth roll by 400 km below.
Separate it, inspect any part, then break it — every subsystem exists to keep seven people alive, powered and cool in the hardest place there is.
No rocket could lift the station in one piece, so it was flown up in dozens of parts and bolted together in orbit. The Integrated Truss Structure is the aluminium spine every array, radiator and arm attaches to.
The amber solar wings are the station's only power source. Rotary joints keep them turned toward the Sun as the ISS races around the Earth sixteen times a day, in and out of darkness.
In vacuum there is no air to carry heat away, so the only way to cool the station is to radiate it. The white ammonia radiators dump the waste heat of every powered box — cut them and the station cooks itself.
Sources: NASA — International Space Station; NASA ISS Reference Guide; CSA — Canadarm2; ESA / JAXA module data.
You've taken it apart — now assemble the station module by module in the real launch order, step inside, and run it from the flight director's chair.
You've explored the twin — now find out when the actual station passes over your sky tonight.
