Question: How does the space station fly

Cara Waters answered on 16 Mar 2026:

The International Space Station doesn’t fly like an airplane – it’s actually always falling around the Earth. Imagine if you throw a ball. If you throw it gently, it falls to the ground, but if you throw it harder, it goes further before hitting the ground. The ISS has been ‘thrown’ around the Earth so hard that it never actually hits Earth – the space station falls at the same rate as the Earth curves underneath it and it stays in an orbit. To get it there and going this fast, a rocket launches it out of the atmosphere into space and then gives it the sideways speed it needs.