The International Space Station (ISS) took over 10 years to construct. Most of the pieces were brought up and assembled by the Space Shuttle. There are two sides to the station – the Russian Orbital Segment and the United States Orbital Segment.
source.image: Jared Owen
On the US side – the modules are connected with the Common Berthing Mechanism or CBM for short. The Space Shuttle used it’s robotic arm called the Canadarm – this could lift and move around objects in space.Watch the video from Jared Owen:
This video summarizes 4 shuttle missions at the beginning stages of construction. STS-88 brought up the Unity Module and attached it to the Russian module Zarya.
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STS-98 brought up the Destiny Module and attached it to the forward side of Unity. STS-100 brought up the Canadarm2 – which was crucial for constructing the station. STS-104 brought up the Quest Airlock and attached it to the side of the Unity. There is a lot more to the stations construction, maybe we’ll cover that in a future video!
