The International Space Station (UUI) will complete its mission within the next ten years, leaving its orbit and falling into the Pacific Ocean. At least, that’s NASA’s plan for the space station, which has hosted research and observation efforts in space for over 20 years. When NASA disables the space station, it is not planned to leave the place of the UUI completely empty. But right now, this plan seems to depend a little bit on other companies going into space.
NASA does not plan to put another space station into orbit to perform its work in space, at least in a manner similar to the ISS. The ISS was established as a joint effort by many countries for further exploration and space exploration. However, NASA hopes to use commercial space stations to replace the ISS in the future. And of course that task falls to private space companies.
Will Sullivan of Smithsonian Magazine outlines this massive series of plans in detail, detailing his efforts to work with companies like NASA’s Axiom Space (the company that designed NASA’s new spacesuits) to continue their research efforts after the ISS fell. Predictably, one of the biggest problems for companies building space stations is that they will need a customer base that will use them.
For NASA to use commercial space stations in place of the ISS, it will need to ensure that companies have a reason to place stations in orbit. It also gets a little more complicated as it involves knowing how many space stations can orbit Earth at the same time. Currently, China has the Tiangong space station, and many countries want to put their stations into orbit.
The International Space Station will complete its mission in 2030.Besides national space stations, major companies currently working to create their own stations include Axiom Space, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, and the collaboration between Voyager Space and Nanoracks. Each group plans to approach its space station differently, and so there may be many different choices NASA can choose to work with instead of the ISS.
Of course, NASA still has a lot of big work to do outside of Earth, including construction of the Gateway on the Moon’s surface, which is scheduled to begin after the successful launch of the Artemis II and Artemis III missions later this decade.
If all goes according to NASA’s plan, the ISS’s plan to run its work on other stations in place of the ISS is expected to face no major difficulties. However, all these plans also depend heavily on Russia remaining in the ISS until it is decommissioned in 2030. Because it is responsible for several vital parts of the station’s current operational missions, Russia’s earlier termination of work on the ISS could result in the station leaving orbit much sooner.
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