Can the iss be left with no one in it.

Question: Can the iss be left with no one in it.
- Keywords:
  ISS
Asked by Lewi to Andrea, Charlie 🚀, Col Op, Kirsty, Vinita on 22 Jun 2016.
- Kirsty Lindsay answered on 22 Jun 2016:
  
  Yes- the ISS can be flown from the ground.
  
  It is better that the crew are on-board though; they can fix things and monitor things in person. So far the ISS has always had a crew on board since 2000.
- Charles Laing answered on 22 Jun 2016:
  
  Hi Lewi,
  
  Yes the International Space Station (ISS) can probably function well without people on it for a period of time.
  
  However, of any repairs needed to be done then astronauts would have to be sent there. One of the best things about the ISS is the great science that is carried out on-board and of course most of that requires human subjects to be tested and human operators to carry out the experiments!
  
  Charlie 🚀
- Columbus Operations answered on 22 Jun 2016:
  
  On top of what the others said, we on Ground are well prepared for the case that there’s no crew onboard the station. If they were to leave it altogether, they’d need to put all systems in a state that we can control from Ground, gather items that might get loose and float around and similar things. We have procedures for everything, usually 🙂
- Andrea Boyd answered on 23 Jun 2016:
  
  Yes – exactly what Col Ops said – we have a procedure for this 🙂

Question: Can the iss be left with no one in it.