The International Space Station is one of the most valuable tools for global space agencies as it gives astronauts a pathway to extended stays in space, alongside providing a home for conducting important experiments and tests.
Launching over quarter of a century ago as a collaboration between many of the world's biggest space agencies, the International Space Station (ISS) has since provided a temporary home to over 280 different astronauts from 26 countries.
It recently played a major role in the survival of 'stranded' NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and while Elon Musk remains adamant in forcing its removal, other figures have argued for its importance.
Being a home away from home you might be surprised to find out quite how fast the floating spacecraft actually travels at though, and one recent simulation shows its staggering speed in an unexpected way.
How fast does the International Space Station travel?
As reported by SupercarBlondie, a recent simulation by YouTuber Airplane Mode makes it far easier to comprehend the International Space Station's roughly 17,150 miles-per-hour (27,600 km/h) average speed.
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For reference, this is around 29 times faster than the speed of an average commercial airplane, and lowering it's orbit from roughly 1,338,240 feet to 10,000 feet shows quite how fast this actually is.
Static landscape shots barely give you a chance to spot the ISS speeding past as it's literally here and gone in the blink of an eye, whereas from the perspective of the space station itself you can see how it flies across the surface of the Earth in no time.
At the speed at which the ISS is traveling it would only take around 90 minutes to complete a full trip around the Earth, giving you just enough time to watch a short film from start to finish.
"I always thought about things like this like what speeds of planes and satellites would be like when put into perspective at ground level," writes one commenter in amazement, whereas another adds that they'd be fascinated to "watch the full 90 minutes of it orbiting the Earth."
Why does the ISS travel so fast?
You might think that it doesn't make sense for the International Space Station to travel at such a staggering speed, but it's necessary as a consequence of its distance from Earth.
The further an object gets from our planet the more distance it has to travel to complete a full rotation, so as a byproduct the faster it has to go to 'keep up' with the speed of Earth.
It's the same reason why small changes in Earth's rotational speed is increased in the areas closest to the equator – as that has to travel at a faster speed in order to complete a larger distance – so the same is true for the ISS.