A football-pitch-sized house full of astronauts zooms around Earth every 93 minutes. Here's exactly where it is, who's aboard, and when you can wave at it.
| Date | Start | Highest | End | Direction | Max height | Brightness |
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Sky chart: centre is straight overhead, the outer ring is the horizon. A pass is visible when your sky is dark and the station is still in sunlight. Times use this device's time zone; brightness is an estimate.
The stream comes from YouTube. It goes dark on the night side of Earth and shows a holding screen when the signal drops. Not playing? Watch on NASA Live →
Fetching crew manifest…
Counted to 1 January 2031. NASA plans to retire the station in early 2031; no exact date has been set.
The International Space Station is a modular station in low Earth orbit - the largest crewed object ever assembled in space. It circles Earth roughly every 90 minutes at about 28,000 km/h.
Run by NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and CSA, it has had people aboard continuously since November 2000, doing experiments in biology, physics, astronomy and meteorology that only work in microgravity. Read more at NASA →