Page 7 - Engineering the International Space Station - Building by Design

THE FIRST SPACE STATIONS

In the 1970s, both the Soviet Union and the United

States built space stations. The Soviet Union’s

cylinder-shaped Salyut stations were the first. The

earliest Salyut station went into space in 1971.

Solar panels collected the sun’s energy for power.

Cosmonauts traveled to Salyut on Soyuz spacecraft.

America’s Skylab station launched in 1973. Three

crews visited it. The first lived on Skylab for 28 days.

Salyut and Skylab were not permanent stations. When

objects orbit near Earth, their orbits gradually get lower

and lower. They eventually dip into the atmosphere.

Without heat shielding, they burn up. Once their

missions ended and astronauts left, these early stations

burned up in the atmosphere.

A PERMANENT SPACE STATION

In 1986 the Soviet Union launched a space station called

Mir. It was designed to stay in space for many years. Mir

had separate sections called modules. Astronauts from

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