Heaviest spacecraft ever built
450,000 kg
992,080 lb
- Record holder
- International Space Station
✓ Value cross-checked in a second source
What to remember
With an estimated mass of 450,000 kg, the International Space Station is the heaviest spacecraft ever built. That figure, estimated by ESA, includes attached vehicles; the completed station alone has a mass of 419,725 kg.
Assembly began with a first launch in 1998, but the station only reached its full weight in the 2020s, as modules were gradually added. It orbits in low Earth orbit, at about 400 kilometres above Earth, and its mass can change significantly as modules are added or removed.
Operated by NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and CSA, it is the first space station built, maintained and crewed through international cooperation. Since 2 November 2000 it has hosted the longest continuous human presence in space. Its mass is nearly double that of the Shuttle-Mir complex, which reached 242 tonnes in a 1995 configuration.
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Sources and licences
- Value, holder and date: Wikipedia article “List of heaviest spacecraft” (revision used 1379904544). Data from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Photo: NASA, Photo licensed under Public domain (Wikimedia Commons).
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