Uninterrupted occupation of stations has been achieved since the operational transition from the Mir to the ISS, with its first occupation in 2000.

Stations have been occupied by consecutive crews since 1987 with the Salyut successor Mir. After the first station, Salyut 1 (1971), and its tragic Soyuz 11 crew, space stations have been operated consecutively since Skylab (1973), having allowed a progression of long-duration direct human presence in space. Space stations have harboured so far the only long-duration direct human presence in space. Space stations have most often been launched for scientific purposes, but military launches have also occurred. The purpose of maintaining an orbital outpost varies depending on the program. Stations must have docking ports to allow other spacecraft to dock to transfer crew and supplies. An orbital station or an orbital space station is an artificial satellite (i.e., a type of orbital spaceflight). It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. It does not store any personal data.A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time and is therefore a type of space habitat. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Performance'. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Necessary'.

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Satellite view of space