The International Space Station has now orbited Earth 100,000 times

The International Space Station reaches milestone.

(Image credit: Paolo Nespoli - ESA/NASA via Getty Images)

published 16 May 2016

The International Space Station orbited Earth for the 100,000th time Monday, NASA announced. Each trip, the first of which occurred in 1998, takes about 90 minutes.

The total distance traveled is more than 2.6 billion miles — which, as NASA's fun fact-filled video below points out, is the equivalent of 10 round trips to Mars. Julie Kliegman

The International Space Station Has Made Its 100,000th Orbit! - YouTube

Watch On

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.