The International Space Station: Inside and Out (Infographic)

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Follow the International Space Station's (ISS) construction and development history from this infographic provided by Space.com.
(Image credit: Karl Tate/Space.com)

The International Space Station is the largest structure ever built in space.

The first module — the Russian Zarya module — launched from Earth 15 years ago on Nov. 20 1998. International crews have continuously occupied the orbiting space laboratory since 2000, and five space agencies contributed to the building of the structure. 

The $100 billion International Space Station has the wingspan of a football field and the living space of a five-bedroom house. It took more than 115 spaceflights of different kinds of spacecraft to build the station, and astronauts and cosmonauts have spent more than 1,000 hours on spacewalks outside of the station.

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Karl Tate
Karl Tate
Space.com contributor

Karl's association with Space.com goes back to 2000, when he was hired to produce interactive Flash graphics. From 2010 to 2016, Karl worked as an infographics specialist across all editorial properties of Purch (formerly known as TechMediaNetwork).  Before joining Space.com, Karl spent 11 years at the New York headquarters of The Associated Press, creating news graphics for use around the world in newspapers and on the web.  He has a degree in graphic design from Louisiana State University and now works as a freelance graphic designer in New York City.