Space station

A space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live on in outer space. A space station is distinguished from other manned spacecraft by its lack of major propulsion or landing facilities — instead, other vehicles are used as transport to and from the station. Space stations are designed for medium-term living in orbit, for periods of weeks, months, or even years.

Past and present space stations

• Salyut stations: Salyut 1, Salyut 2 (failed on-orbit, never occupied), Salyut 3, Salyut 4, Salyut 5, Salyut 6, Salyut 7
• Skylab
• Mir
• International Space Station (ISS)

Following the controlled deorbiting of Mir in 2001, the International Space Station is the only one of these currently in orbit; it has been continuously manned since 2001.

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A second Skylab unit (Skylab B) was manufactured, as a backup article; due to the high costs of providing launch vehicles, and a desire by NASA to cease Saturn & Apollo operations in time to prepare for the Space Shuttle coming into service, it was never flown. The hull can now be seen in the National Air and Space Museum, in Washington DC, where it is a popular tourist attraction. A number of additional Salyuts were also produced, as backups or as flight articles which were later cancelled.

Related Topics:
Space Shuttle - National Air and Space Museum

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The International Space Station evolved from the American Space Station Freedom program, which - despite being under development for ten years - was never launched; it incorporated elements of a Mir replacement station ("Mir 2") which was also never constructed. Other cancelled space station programs included the United States Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory project, cancelled in 1969 about a year before the first planned test flight; this was unusual in being an explicitly military project, as opposed to the Soviet Almaz program, which was heavily intertwined with - and concealed by - the contemporaneous Salyut program.

Related Topics:
Space Station Freedom - United States Air Force - Manned Orbiting Laboratory - Almaz

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Currently, Bigelow Aerospace is commercially developing inflatable habitat modules, derived from the earlier Transhab concept, intended to be used for space station construction.

Related Topics:
Bigelow Aerospace - Transhab

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