Following Skylab and Mir, the latest entry in orbit around our planet is the International Space Station. This piece of latest technology measures over 70 meters in length and represents the culmination of over seven years worth of work by a consortium of sixteen nations (United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe). With an original budget of 60 billion dollars and an anticipated 35 Shuttle missions for its complete construction, the life expectancy of Space Station Alpha is thirty years. The first section of the ISS, the 24.2-ton Zarya module, was put into orbit in Nov/98 and was followed by the placement of the US-constructed Unity module by the STS-98 crew in Dec/98. The third and fourth missions to ISS (STS-96 in June/99 and STS-101 in May/00) involved the transport of various tools and cranes in anticipation of the arrival of the third major component, namely the Zvezda Service Module in July/00. STS-97 in Nov/00 was the last shuttle mission of the 20th century and was responsible for the delivery and installation of the solar panels. The first shuttle mission of the 21st century, STS-98 (Feb/01), delivered the Destiny Laboratory Module. Finally, STS-100 (Apr/01) delivered the station's robot arm and a second reusable cargo system (the Italian built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module known as "Rafaello" which follows the earlier similar system "Leonardo").

Note: The capture of the ISS is an ultimate adrenaline rush owing to the difficulty in capturing overhead passes (and occasional transits against the Sun and Moon). The difficulty involved is magnified when a capture is attempted during the day where focusing is more difficult due to the lack of contrast thanks to the bright sunlight and where the passing ISS may quite possibly be "lost" in the bright glow of the daytime sky.

Two earlier successful efforts involving flybys by the passing ISS with Jupiter and Mars were both captured in 2010. During 2022, an effort to capture an ISS flyby of the Moon failed due to the Sun being less than 40 degrees away. The result below with the Moon now at 86.4 degrees elongation from the Sun proved to be successful and in spite of the Sun being at 50 degrees altitude. Similarly, the ISS was characterized with an angular separation of 36.6 arc-minutes from the Moon.

The rising Moon in the photo below is characterized with a phase of 46.4%, a magnitude of -10.0 and an apparent diameter of 30.64 arc-minutes while lying at a distance of 393,009 km and which is quite close to the maximum (apogee) distance the Moon can attain during its elliptical orbit around Earth (see here).