It was November 20, 1998, when an unprecedented international coalition of astronomers, engineers and rocket scientists saw years of collaboration come to fruition with the launch of the International Space Station’s first component. Since then, the largest spacecraft ever built has hosted innumerable astronauts, experiments and other craft. Here are a few notable moments in the history of this inspiring and decades-spanning mission.
1984: Reagan proposes the ISS — without Russia
The space station was originally going to be a U.S. effort, but soon became a collaboration with Canada, Japan and Europe, excluding the then-USSR. American-Russian relations were strained then, as you may remember, and although many in the space industry itself would have preferred working together, the political climate did not permit it. Nevertheless, initial work began.
1993: Clinton adds Russia to the bill
The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent rejuvenation of international relations led President Bush to bring them into the program in a limited fashion, as a supplier and as a guest on a shuttle mission. The next year, however, President Clinton one-upped him with the announcement that Russia would be a full partner. This was both a practical and political decision: Russian involvement would save billions, but it also helped bring Russia on board with other issues, like ICBM de-proliferation efforts. At any rate, designs were finally beginning to be built.
1998: The first components, Zarya and Unity, launch to orbit
Endeavour approaches Zarya when the latter was the only component in place.
Though persona non grata at first, Russia had the privilege of launching the first core component of the ISS on November 20, 1998, the anniversary we are celebrating today. The Zarya Functional Cargo Block is still up there, still being used, forming the gateway to the Russian side of the station.
One month later, Space Shuttle Endeavour took off from Launch Complex 39A (we’ve been there) carrying Unity Node 1. This too is up there now, attached since that day to Zarya.
2000: The first of many long-term occupants arrive
From left: Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev, aboard the station.
Almost exactly a year after Zarya went up, the first astronauts took up residence on the ISS — the first of 230 people so far to call the orbiting structure home. Bill Shepherd was NASA’s first representative, flying with cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev; they would stay for about 141 days.
2003: Columbia disaster delays expansion
The fatal breakup of Space Shuttle Columbia on reentry following its 28th mission was tragedy enough that other shuttle missions were scrubbed for over two years. As these were the primary means of the U.S. adding to and maintaining the ISS, this responsibility passed to Roscosmos until shuttle launches resumed in 2005; crewed launches wouldn’t resume until mid-2006.
2007: Kibo goes up
Numerous modules have been added to the ISS over the years, but Japan’s Kibo is the largest. It took multiple missions to deliver all the pieces, and was only made possible by earlier missions that had expanded the solar power capacity of the station. Kibo contains a ton of reconfigurable space accessible from the pressurized interior, and has been popular for both private and public experiments that must be conducted in space.
2010: Enter the Cupola
If Kibo is the largest component, the Cupola is likely the most famous. The giant 7-window bubble looks like something out of science fiction (specifically, the front end of the Millennium Falcon) and is the location for the station’s most striking photography, both inside and out.
2014: Beautiful timelapses
With the Cupola in place, capturing imagery of the Earth from this amazing view became easier — especially with the increasingly high-quality digital cameras brought aboard by talented astronaut-photographers like Alexander Gerst and Don Pettit. The many, many photos taken out of this aperture have been formed into innumerable beautiful timelapses and desktop backgrounds, as well as witnessing incredible phenomena like aurora and lightning storms from a new and valuable perspective. It’s hard to pick just one, but Don Pettit’s “The World Outside My Window” above is a fabulous example, and Gerst’s 4K compilation is another.
2015: Gennady Padalka sets time in space record
During his fifth flight to space, Gennady Padalka set a world record for most time in space: When he returned to Earth he had logged a total of 878 days and change. That’s well ahead of the competition, which is almost exclusively Russian — though NASA’s Peggy Whitson is right up there with 666 days over three missions.
2016: Chinese station calling ISS, please pick up
It’s hardly crowded in space, but it can get lonely up there. So it’s nice that those who have the honor to fly reach out to each other. In this case China’s taikonaut Jing Haipeng recorded a heartwarming video message from the Chinese Tiangong-2 space station greeting the incoming ISS crew and praising the community of global cooperation that makes all this possible.
A crewed mission to the ISS with astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin encountered a serious fault during launch, fortunately resulting in no injuries or fatalities but shaking up the space community. The Soyuz rocket and capsule had more than proven themselves over the years but no risks could be taken with human life, and future missions were delayed. It was possible that for the first time since it was first entered, the ISS would be empty as its crew left with no replacements on the way.
Fortunately the investigation has concluded and a new mission is planned for early December, which will prevent such an historic absence.
2019? First commercial crew mission and beyond
Russia has borne sole responsibility for all crewed launches for years; the U.S. has been planning to separate itself from this dependence by fostering a new generation of crew-capable capsules that can meet and exceed the safety and reliability of the Soyuz system. SpaceX and Boeing both plan 2019 flights for their respective Crew Dragon and Starliner capsules — though slipping dates and new regulatory attention may delay those further.
The ISS has a bright future despite its remarkable 20 years of continuous operation. It’s funded more or less through 2025, but there’s talk of new space stations from Russia and China both, while the U.S. eyes lunar orbit for its next big endeavor. It’s hard to imagine space now without an ISS full of people in it, however, and falling launch costs may mean that its life can be extended even further and for less cost. Here’s hoping the ISS has another two decades in front of it.
Enlarge / The Pixel Watch. It’s a round little pebble.
Ron Amadeo
Here’s one of the improvements Google might want to look into for the Pixel Watch 2: better glue. Android Police spotted a few reports of the back panels of some Pixel Watches just falling off. A few posts on the PixelWatch subreddit have photos of this phenomenon; several commenters say it happened to them, too.
This certainly seems like something Google should cover under warranty, and with the device being less than a year old, everyone should be under warranty. You also have a strong argument if you contact Google support about a device that has fallen apart. The scary thing is this will also compromise the device’s water resistance, and we doubt Google is covering every instance of water damage. Most reports indicate Google is taking care of the problem, but a few users were initially threatened with a $300 repair fee, which was later waived.
Thanks to my excessive sweating (I believe) the glue on the back of my pixel watch dissolved and the back has popped off. pic.twitter.com/ltUQauXC4I
When iFixit tore down the Pixel Watch, it noted the back adhesive was a novel “liquid gasket” the site had never seen before. The report said, “The rear glass appears to be held in place by a kind of liquid gasket that seals tightly, but comes open clean. It also peels off the glass with virtually no residue.” It sounds like Google’s fancy glue peels off a little too easily. Poorly adhered back panels were also a recent problem with Fossil watches, and in the “Gen 6” versions, Fossil acknowledged the problem and said it was fixed.
We all know manufacturers like to build completely fastener-free smartphones, but it’s not unusual to see visible screws on the back of a traditional watch. Some watches turn the entire back panel into a giant screw, with a threaded edge running along the back cover, and the whole thing screws into the watch body. Maybe a real fastener would help the Pixel Watch.
Google Wallet on Android is finally getting ready for your digital driver’s license and other US state IDs. Google says the feature is rolling out this month, and it will slowly start bringing states online this year. Of course, your state has to be one of the few that actually supports digital IDs. Google says Maryland residents can use the feature right now and that “in the coming months, residents of Arizona, Colorado and Georgia will join them.”
The road to digital driver’s license support has been a long one, with the “Identity Credential API” landing in Android 11 in 2020. Since then, it has technically been possible for states to make their own ID app. Now Google Wallet, Google’s re-re-reboot of its payment app, is providing a first-party way to store an ID on your phone. Some parts of the Identity Credential API landed in Google Play Services (Google’s version-agnostic brick of APIs), so Wallet supports digital IDs going back to Android 8.0, which covers about 90 percent of Android devices.
Maryland has supported Digital IDs on iOS for a while, which gives us an idea of how this will work. An NFC transfer is enough to beam your credentials to someone, where you can just tap against a special NFC ID terminal and confirm the transfer with your fingerprint. Wallet has an NFC option, along with a “Show code” option that will show the traditional driver’s license barcode.
IDs are saved locally on your device, but Google lets you remove them remotely from myaccount.google.com, so if you lose your phone, you can still secure your ID. In the full-fat, Android 11 version of the Identity Credential API, Google supposedly has a “Direct Access” mode that can transfer your ID over NFC even if you don’t have enough power to boot up the phone. Google says that will require special hardware support, though.
Reality has not necessarily caught up to Google’s and Apple’s technical implementations. Just like Apple’s announcement in 2021, Google only mentions the Wallet IDs working at airport TSA check-ins, and the support document notes that “you must still carry your physical ID as needed.” For it to actually replace a driver’s license, police would have to be trained and equipped to accept a digital ID during a traffic stop. Ideally, they would have a portable ID scanner/NFC reader because the alternative of handing over your entire phone to the cops does not sound very appealing. Laws and technology rollouts have to happen individually across all 50 states, so it’s hard to track how far along any of this is. It does not sound like much progress has been made, though. IDScan.net, a company that makes digital ID solutions, currently tracks 12 states as having some kind of active digital ID program and another 11 in a “pilot” program.
The “TinyTendo” project, which fits a real NES into a Game Boy-sized enclosure, isn’t for the faint of heart.
The hardware can play custom game cartridges, though full-size carts would be playable with an adapter.
The TinyTendo charges via USB-C.
Once cut down, the NES chips can be soldered to a custom PCB that’s smaller than a Raspberry Pi.
The NES PCB and several other boards work together to make the system function.
If you want a portable console that can play old Nintendo Entertainment System games, the easiest option is software emulation, whether you’re using Nintendo’s official Switch app, a portable PC, or some cheap knockoff emulator handheld. For those who want better accuracy than software emulation can provide, there’s always the Analogue Pocket, which can (with current firmware) re-create the NES in hardware using its FPGA chip.
But some purists are unsatisfied with anything other than original hardware—that’s the only possible explanation for projects like the TinyTendo, which goes to extraordinary lengths to squeeze an entire NES into a portable package roughly the size and weight of the old gray monochrome Game Boy. The project is the creation of hardware modder Redherring32, who eventually plans to open-source the project.
For miniaturization projects like this, you often see chopped-up or fully custom-printed circuit boards used with the original chips to contort the hardware into a new shape. This landscape orientation mod for the original Game Boy is a good example. But more drastic measures were needed to squeeze an entire NES into a handheld console, most notably the removal of bulky pins and ceramic that the original chips all use.
“TinyTendo utilizes real NES chips that have been physically cut and ground down smaller,” wrote Redherring32. “A simple run down is that I sand away the bottom of the chip till I hit the die and leads, then I cut the chip smaller with a Dremel. The end result is 10x10x2mm, and surface mountable.”
The hand-cut chips save a substantial amount of space by losing the pins and ceramic.
Soldering the hand-cut chips to a custom PCB creates a fully functional NES board that is “smaller than a Raspberry Pi 3,” though the design also integrates a power management PCB, a button PCB, and other boards for audio and other functions. The console has a built-in LCD screen, charges over USB-C, and plays miniaturized (non-original) game cartridges, though full-size carts could be played with an adapter.
The downside of this project is that it requires the sacrifice of an actual NES to make it work. This prototype was made from an NES with a “very damaged motherboard,” and we would encourage anyone who wants to make their own to harvest parts from non-functional consoles rather than destroying functioning hardware.
Redherring32 is responsible for several other modding and preservation projects, including open source PCB designs for the original front- and top-loading NES motherboards and the “PicoPad,” a functional controller that’s considerably smaller than the connector that plugs it into the NES.
Russia has borne sole responsibility for all crewed launches for years; the U.S. has been planning to separate itself from this dependence by fostering a new generation of crew-capable capsules that can meet and exceed the safety and reliability of the Soyuz system. SpaceX and Boeing both plan 2019 flights for their respective Crew Dragon and Starliner capsules — though slipping dates and new regulatory attention may delay those further.
