There won't be a 200,000^th orbit for the legendary International Space Station (ISS) but for the moment, the six men aboard the biggest object mankind has sent into space celebrated the ISS' 100,000^th orbit on May 16.

The news was broadcast to the world below by NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

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"Monday, May 16, 2016 at 06:10 GMT, the ISS will begin its 100,000th orbit as it crosses the equator," said Williams in a video.

Aboard the space station with Williams to mark this historic event were U.S astronaut Tim Kopra; British astronaut Tim Peake and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka. Peake is the first British astronaut of the European Space Agency.

The men belong to Expedition 46/47. Kopra is the commander of Expedition 47 that began its tour last March and will end this June. All the other five men are Flight Engineers.

Williams said the 100,000^th orbit was a "tribute to international partnership made up of the European Space Agency, Russia, Canada, Japan and the United States."

He said more than 220 astronauts and cosmonauts from 18 countries have been aboard the ISS since its first element launched in 1998.

Now attached to the ISS is the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) that will be tested over the next two years to determine its in-orbit habitat suitability.

The first component of the ISS was orbited in 1998 and the space station began to receive its crews starting in 2000. The ISS is essentially a space laboratory zooming in low Earth Orbit some 430 kilometers above the surface of the planet. The ISS makes 16 orbits of the Earth every day.

Crew members conduct micro-gravity experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and other fields. One of its current missions is to test spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. The U.S. plans a return to the Moon in the 2020s and to land the first humans on Mars in the 2030s.

NASA's focus on manned trips to other worlds has meant it won't have enough funds to support both this aim and a continued American presence on the ISS.

NASA seems to have chosen to abandon the ISS in favor of planetary exploration. Funds for America's stay on the ISS will run out in 2024 and NASA has not requested additional funding. NASA spent $3 billion (1/6^th of its total $18 billion budget) on the ISS in 2015.

"We're going to get out of ISS as quickly as we can," said NASA chief of human spaceflight, William Gerstenmaier, in December 2015. A return to the Moon is NASA's next target.

There won't be a 200,000th orbit for the ISS without American money and participation since Russia can't go it alone considering its economy is being crippled by severe Western sanctions.

TagsInternational Space Station, ISS, 100, 000th orbit, NASA, Expedition 46/47, european space agency, William Gerstenmaier