国际空间站始建于1998年,是以美国和俄罗斯为主,日本、加拿大、欧洲航天局成员国和巴西等总共16个国家联合参与的国际合作项目,总投资为600多亿美元。它是迄今世界上最大的航天工程,也是世界航天史上第一个国际合作建设的空间站,整个建设工作预计到2005年结束。国际空间站的工作寿命将在15年以上。国际空间站计划最早由美国提出,当时名为国际自由号空间站,于1984年得到美国总统里根的批准,但建设难度大和耗资过高使得这项计划没有取得进展。1993年,克林顿入主白宫后提出将自由号空间站由美国独自建造改为国际合作建设,从而使这一计划得以生存下来。同年11月1日,美国国家航空航天局与俄罗斯宇航局签署了合作建设一座空间站的协议。1998年3月7日,俄 The International Space Station was established in 1998 and is an international cooperation project mainly involving the United States and Russia. Japan, Canada, member countries of the European Space Agency and a total of 16 countries, including Brazil, have a total investment of more than 60 billion U.S. dollars. It is by far the largest aerospace project in the world and the first space station in the history of spaceflight in the history of spaceflight. The entire construction work is expected to be completed by the end of 2005. The working life of the ISS will be over 15 years. The ISS project was first proposed by the United States. At that time, the station named International Freedom Station was approved by U.S. President Reagan in 1984. However, the project was difficult to build and costly, making no progress in this plan. After Bill Clinton entered the White House in 1993, he proposed to save the space station from being built by the United States alone to building an international cooperation so that this plan could survive. On November 1 of the same year, NASA and Russia’s NASA signed an agreement to cooperate in building a space station. March 7, 1998, Russia