NASA astronaut Nicholas Patrick hanging on to Cupola. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons The International Space Station is the longest-running continuously inhabited human outpost in space, and this year it celebrated its 15th anniversary.

As the ISS orbits the Earth it is essentially in a state of free fall, counteracting the Earth’s gravity and providing an ideal platform for science in space.

Science aboard the ISS is decidedly cross-disciplinary, including fields as diverse as microbiology, space science, fundamental physics, human biology, astronomy, meteorology and Earth observation to name a few.

But let’s take a look at some of the biggest findings: