Freedom II フリーダムII
宇宙活動 / 社会・生活

A joint-project space station built by America, Europe, Japan, and Russia. It is a multiple-use manned facility orbiting the Earth at an average altitude of 249 miles. It is 269-feet long, an average of 407-feet wide, and the combined weight of its 4 modules is over 320 tons. Previous space stations placed heavy emphasis on research purposes, but Freedom II, equipped with a full-scale manufacturing module, manufactures various products that can only be made in space, such as solar cells, amorphous semiconductors, and ultra-transparent glass. It was one of the pioneers of Made in Space development.

Named Freedom II (and not simply Freedom) in respect toward Space Station Freedom, which had a significant impact on space exploration and development even though it was never realized the way it was originally envisioned.