Airbus unveils 26ft-wide, space station concept with a GREENHOUSE that could launch within a decade

The International Space Station (ISS) is a $100bn (£80bn) science and engineering laboratory orbiting the Earth.

Since November 2000, it has been permanently manned by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts.

Crews have mainly come from the US and Russia, but the Japanese space agency JAXA and the European space agency ESA have also sent astronauts.

Research aboard the ISS often requires one or more of the unusual conditions present in low Earth orbit, such as low gravity or oxygen.

ISS studies have explored human research, space medicine, life sciences, natural sciences, astronomy and meteorology.

The US space agency NASA spends about $3bn (£2.4bn) a year on the space station programme, with the remaining funding coming from international partners including Europe, Russia and Japan.

So far, 244 individuals from 19 countries have visited the station, including eight private individuals who have spent up to $50 million on their visit.

There is an ongoing debate over the station’s future beyond 2025, when part of the original structure is believed to be reaching ‘end of life’.

Russia, a major partner in the station, plans to launch its own orbital platform around that time, while Axiom Space, a private company, plans to simultaneously send its own modules to the station for purely commercial use.

NASA, ESA, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are teaming up to build a space station in orbit around the moon, and Russia and China are working on a similar project, which would also include a base on the surface.