The International Space Station (ISS) is about to be boosted using a new method, 26 years after the orbiting laboratory first launched. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Though you might imagine that the ISS could orbit the Earth long-term like the Moon, it actually needs to be regularly boosted in order to keep it from falling back down to the ground. This is thanks to the drag of the Earth's atmosphere.

"As you think of the atmosphere where we live and breathe here on Earth, it doesn’t just stop right above our heads. It doesn’t stop at Mount Everest. It doesn’t stop where the planes are flying. It goes on and on all the way up, and just gets less and less dense the higher you go. And it’s still there at a very high

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