International Space Station. Time-exposure image, showing the trail of the International Space Station (ISS, upper left) as it crosses the sky. The ISS orbits at an altitude of around 360 kilometres, and takes about 92 minutes to complete one orbit of Earth. From Earth, the ISS has a visual magnitude around -1, almost as bright as Sirius, the brightest star. This brightness is due to the high reflectivity of the station's extensive solar panel array.