It has come to the end of the road for the International Space Station (ISS), which has been humanity’s home in space for almost 24 years. NASA, which has already started working on alternatives, has published a report detailing its plans to leave the ISS behind. The institution, which is working very seriously to eliminate this huge structure in space, made a statement on how to destroy the station in less than ten years.
NASA’s plan to cancel the ISS
Assembly of the station began in the late ’90s, relying heavily on the obsolete Space Shuttle to transport most of the modular sections into space. The primary structure was completed in 2010, but the station has continued to expand over the years with the help of space agencies around the world.
NASA and its partners plan to spend the 2020s doing important research on the ISS, exploring the effects of long-term spaceflight, climate change, and the potential impact of future commercial activities in orbit. To ensure that the ISS does not become a space hazard, it will be allowed to “fall” into the atmosphere, though it will take some time to reach the atmosphere.
According to the NASA report, the ISS will begin preparing for its own apocalypse in 2030. That’s when NASA will disrupt the orbit of the station by firing its own engines and the vehicles attached to it. A year later, in January 2031, the station will pass the point of no return, where drift accelerates its descent into the atmosphere.
The ISS is so large that it cannot be completely disintegrated during reentry into the atmosphere. Therefore, NASA planned a long and slow landing, allowing the controllers to guide the ISS to a desolate area (SPOUA) in the Southern Pacific Ocean.
NASA does not intend to completely exit the space station project after leaving the ISS. The agency has begun preliminary work on the Lunar Gateway, a small station and communications hub that will support crewed voyages to the Moon and beyond. But Gateway’s construction is based on the launch of the Artemis Program, and the Space Launch System (SLS) mega-rocket is still not ready either. NASA hopes to perform the first uncrewed test flight of the SLS later this year.
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