Space Atlas
The International Space Station seen from a departing Crew Dragon, its long solar-array wings spread above white clouds.

Living in orbit

What do people do in orbit, and what happens after the Space Station?

NASA, November 8, 2021

Since November 2000 there have always been people in orbit aboard the International Space Station, about 250 miles up and circling Earth every 90 minutes. Getting them there, supplying them and bringing them home is now bought from companies rather than done with NASA’s own vehicles.

NASA plans to operate the station through 2030 and then deorbit it. What replaces it, and whether there will be a gap in which no American crew lives in orbit, is one of the open questions of the program.

Begin with ISS
  1. 1Built in orbit over thirteen years, occupied without a break since 2000How five space agencies assembled the largest structure ever flown, what it has cost the United States, why its oldest Russian tunnel leaks, and how NASA plans to bring it down after 2030.Story and 3D model, about 10 minutes
  2. 2How seven people sleep, eat, exercise and work aboard the space stationTwenty-five years of continuous occupation have given the station a daily routine: private sleep stations, a pantry without a refrigerator, two and a half hours of exercise, recycled water, spacewalks and experiments on the crew.Story, about 10 minutes
  3. 3Commercial crew: $9.8 billion, one certified spacecraft, one still in testingHow NASA stopped owning its crew vehicles and started buying rides, why SpaceX’s Dragon has flown every rotation since 2020, and what still stands between Boeing’s Starliner and its first crew.Story, about 8 minutes
  4. 4After the ISS: NASA’s plan to rent space on commercial stationsSince 2020 NASA has paid companies to design stations it could rent after 2030. In 2025 and 2026 the plan changed three times, the money stayed short, and GAO warned of a gap in U.S. crew presence.Story, about 12 minutes