Space station

The International Space Station on March 7, 2011, captured from the Space Shuttle Discovery

Model of the Chinese space station Tiangong 2 with the spaceship Shenzhou 11

The Russian Mir space station in 1998

Skylab , the only US space station to date, in 1974

The Soviet space station Salyut 7 with the Soyuz spaceship attached

Space stations are spacecraft that are mostly in the orbit of a celestial body and allow people to live on them for a long time. Since they themselves do not have a propulsion system for locomotion or landing equipment, they are dependent on spacecraft for transport. Room laboratories are a sub-form of space stations .

Problems

The technical challenge when operating a space station is, above all, supplying the crew. Due to the high costs of transport, systems had to be developed that allow the operation of a space station to be largely self-sufficient, i.e. H. in a closed circuit. Great progress has been made, especially in the treatment of water and air.

The orbit around the earth is not stable at a height of 300 kilometers, as a very thin earth atmosphere constantly slows down the space stations. Without regular thrust into higher orbits, space stations would therefore re-enter the earth's atmosphere after a few months or years. The gravity of other celestial bodies could also disturb the orbit of a space station. Space stations therefore need a constant supply, especially of fuel for course correction.

The space stations in detail

The first space station was the Soviet Salyut 1 in 1971 . One of the most important space stations was the Soviet Mir station , which was gradually expanded and used for almost 15 years. With the ISS , a space station is now permanently manned in international cooperation.

To date, thirteen space stations have been put into orbit, eleven of which have been manned:

Surname	begin	crash	Number of long-term crews	Busy days	Mass in kg b)	comment
Salyut 1	April 19, 1971	October 11, 1971	1	0024	018,500	All three crew members died on the return flight in Soyuz 11 upon re-entry.
Salyut 2	3rd April 1973	May 28, 1973	0	0000	018,500	Loss of pressure and instrument failure caused the station to crash prematurely
Cosmos 557	May 11, 1973	May 22, 1973	0	0000	019,400	did not reach a stable orbit
Skylab	May 14, 1973	July 11, 1979	3	0171	077,088	so far the only purely US space station
Salyut 3	June 24, 1974	January 24, 1975	1	0015th	018,500
Salyut 4	December 26, 1974	2nd February 1977	2	0092	018,500
Salyut 5	June 22, 1976	August 8, 1977	2	0067	019,000
Salyut 6	29th September 1977	July 29, 1982	6th	0683	019,824	first refuelable space station
Salyut 7	April 19, 1982	February 7, 1991	5	0816	018,900
Me	February 19, 1986	March 23, 2001	28	4594	124,340	largest Russian space station to date
ISS	November 20, 1998	(still in orbit)	so far 65	7471 a)	455,000	under international cooperation, four Russian modules are still missing ( Nauka , two Science Power Modules and a small coupling module )
Tiangong 1	September 29, 2011	April 2, 2018	2	0021	008,506	first Chinese space station
Tiangong 2	15th September 2016	19th July 2019	1	0030th	008,600

^a As of April 17, 2021

^b partially rounded or estimated

Planned space stations

According to the plans of the Chinese space organization CNSA, a permanently manned space station is to follow as the successor to Tiangong 1 and Tiangong 2 by 2022 . NASA wants to operate the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway space station with the ISS partners from 2024 . India is planning its own space station for around 2030.

Possible future development

Owen Garriott ( Skylab 3 , 1973)

Future space stations could be positioned at a greater distance from the earth in one of the Lagrange points of the earth-moon system. The Lagrange points L ₄ and L ₅ enable the space station to have a much more stable orbit, which would significantly reduce the necessary course corrections and thus fuel consumption. However, the intensity of cosmic rays is considerably greater at a greater distance from the earth, because there is no protection from the earth's magnetosphere . For such a space station it would be necessary to take special precautions for radiation protection .

One possible concept for future space stations would be the O'Neill colonies , for example .

See also

• List of manned missions to the Mir space station
• List of manned missions to the International Space Station
• Space travel

literature

• Philip Baker: The Story of Manned Space Stations - An Introduction. Springer, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-30775-6 .
• Roger D. Launius: Space station - base camps to the stars. Smithonian, Washington DC 2003, ISBN 1-58834-120-8 .
• Ernst Messerschmid et al .: Space Stations - Systems and Utilization. Springer, Berlin 1999, ISBN 978-3-642-08479-9 .

Web links

Wiktionary: space station  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Commons : space stations  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tiangong 1 burns up in the earth's atmosphere. Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 2, 2018, accessed on April 2, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Chinese space station "Tiangong-2" over the South Pacific burned up in the atmosphere. July 19, 2019. Retrieved July 19, 2019 . 
3. ↑ China to Launch Tiangong-2 Space Lab in 2016: Astronaut. CRIENGLISH.com, September 10, 2014, accessed September 11, 2014 . 
4. ↑ China plans to launch core module of space station around 2018. People's Daily Online, April 21, 2016, accessed September 15, 2016 . 
5. ↑ Huma Siddiqui: India to have its own space station! ISRO plans to take historic leap. In: The Hindu . June 13, 2019, accessed June 13, 2019 .