How did they build the ISS? (International Space Station)

This is the story of how the Space Shuttle was used to construct the International Space Station.

👏Big thanks to my video reviewers:
Jim Newman - Astronaut STS-88

This video has been dubbed in over 20 languages, you can change the audio track language in the Settings menu (click the gear icon in the lower right hand corner of the video).

⌚Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:11 - ISS Intro
02:11 - Berthing & Docking Mechanisms
05:05 - Space Shuttle Intro
06:28 - STS-88 (Unity)
09:38 - STS-98(Destiny)
11:05 - Canadarm2
12:02 - STS-100 (Canadarm2)
13:27 - STS-104 (Quest)
15:08 - More Construction

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🌐Internet Sources:

📚Book Sources:
The International Space Station: Operating an Output in the New Frontier

International Space Station Owners' Workshop Manual by David Baker

NASA Space Shuttle Owners' Workshop Manual by David Baker

🟠This animation was made with Blender 3.6 (Cycles Render)

Sun Dust by Cody Martin
Interdimensional by Cody Martin
Artisan Craft by Cody Martin

🎧Here is some of the gear that I use for animation:

📼Video Summary:
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. 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. 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. 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!

#b3d #NASA #SpaceShuttle

[jamiebruce]

Just to get it on the record: I don't mind how long it is, I'd definitely watch a video where you cover every single mission. They're just so good.

[Marc-jsrx]

As a man who prides himself on knowing "a little bit about many things", I knew NOTHING about the ISS. I felt kinda embarrassed about that deficiency, which is why I am very, VERY grateful to you, Jared, for taking on this enormous task!! Outstanding presentation and easy-to-understand detail. So impressed, and so appreciated. My wife & I love ALL of your presentations!

[SydneyKnight]

You have outdone yourself again Jared.
I watched this with my 7 year old son before he went off to school. He loves anything space. We both enjoyed and learned from this.
Keep up the great work

[judet]

The design feature of having identical connectors at both ends of the Canadarm 2 allowing it to almost walk around the station is so cool.

[SianGoodie]

As an ISS flight controller I just wanted to say this video is fantastic and more accurate than I expected. Keep it up!

[themomorain]

This is so mindblowing. Even with this video I cant blieve this is humanly possible!

[HighlandMoto]

I love these animation videos! The amount of effort put in these videos is just outstanding!

[emilymusic]

Hi jarred!! My son absolutely loves your videos, he is 4yrs old and learns so much from them! My son blows my mind at the things he knows from your videos! He is autistic and your videos make him so happy.
He asked me to comment on your videos to tell you that he loves your content and "he hopes you're very happy with your family" -his words. His name is jasper, and he is 100% your biggest fan.

[Marx.Lenin.Stalin]

Первая миссия была с модулем Заря. Именно этот модуль обеспечивал все системы жизнеобеспечения.

[atharvaaundhkar]

The Canadarm is just amazing, a masterpiece of engineering and robotics. Great work Jared, I would love to see more of these videos!

[AgricultureTechUS]

incredible. I can't stop watching it

[JeanettLou]

Absolutely fantastic! Both the ISS construction as well as your animation which is didactic and an optical enjoyment.

[ChadEnglishPhD]

Great video and it brings back a lot of memories. I supported 16 of these assembly missions including 6 from NASA JSC Mission Control Center, right up to 2007.

An interesting component of berthing and assembly you didn't get into in the video is how you align the modules and why it took so long to bring them together. It wasn't like dock an aircraft to a gate with ground crew guiding alignment with light batons saying to move left or right.

There were several methods used including centerline berthing cameras and alignment targets. The system I was supporting was the Space Vision System that used all of those black and white targets all over the modules.

SVS used the Space Shuttle cameras in the payload bay to track the targets on both the incoming module and the module on the ISS it is attaching to, and calculated the relative position and orientation (x, y, z, yaw, pitch, roll) 30 times per second. It had to berth slowly because these modules are massive so their inertia was both hard to get moving and hard to stop, and could do a lot of damage if anything collided. Alignment was monitored closely the whole way in.

Also, the ISS and shuttle were orbiting the Earth this whole time, so sometimes would traverse from night to day and vice-versa. That could put shadows on targets and make it hard to track all of them at the same time due to dynamic lighting. Pre-flight I had to analyze which targets were important and which could be lost and still perform the operation within spec, and keep an eye on this during berthing operations.

The last one in 2007 I supported remotely from my home in Ottawa at 2 AM in my underwear, using telemetry over the internet to my laptop, a cellphone to our MCC team, and NASA TV video streamed over a modded Xbox. When I went back to bed, my girlfriend (now wife of 15 years) asked if I couldn't sleep and I told her that, no, I had gotten up to assemble the international space station. Fun times. :)

[steveyounger]

This was an awesome video! I’m on the dive team that trained the astronauts at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory to build the station in orbit during Shuttle. Now we are only training for ISS maintenance, crew rescue, and soon-to-be lunar missions! Love the channel and keep up the great work!

[flyingchris]

I am blown away! What an incredible video! Not just the really amazing animations but also the information about all that. Big respect!!!

[centralplains]

Saw this INCREDIBLE animation video after watching your "docuvid" on the USS Arizona!! You oughta be PAID (by NASA, DoD or SpaceX) for the time, effort and DETAIL you put into making these POWERFUL descriptions and re-enactments of the subject matter!! Thank you for breaking these histories down into COMPREHENSIVE, UNDERSTANDABLE depictions!!👍🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[ScaredPilot]

What's important is that most of the major sections of the Russian segment are their own spaceships, they have their own propulsion and attitude control engines so they can maintain their own orbit after launch and even dock with themselves. US-made segments however are not, they are basically giant tin can cabins with science capacity as their primary design objective so they need to be carried to the station by the shuttle and placed onto the station using robot arms.

[io]

I would watch a whole hour or two of the entire ISS build. This is important work from a historical perspective, and for younger generations to understand that things take a long time to build. Fabulous work Jared!

[Samoroh]

Thank you, brother, for setting the Arabic language. We are very obsessed with space science, and finally I can listen instead of suffering from a problem in understanding🙂❤

[petertammer]

Great work Jared, so pleased you have made this! Keen to see more. pt