International Space Station will be “retired”
If last year it was saved by a tea bag, it seems that this time there will be no way back for the old International Space Station.
After years of exploring options, NASA has finally decided how it wants to withdraw the International Space Station.
According to a press release, the space agency hopes to keep the aged outpost alive by the end of 2030. After that, it will cause the massive structure to sink into a remote region of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.
NASA announces the withdrawal of the ISS as a “transition from operations to commercial services,” reiterating its emphasis on supporting private-public efforts in Earth orbit.
In an official ISS transition plan sent to Congress, NASA detailed its plans to withdraw the station from orbit. First, mission control will power the thrusters to slowly reduce the altitude of the station.
Once close to Earth’s atmosphere, around January 2031, it will perform its last maneuver to ensure that it lands in the “Uninhabited Area of the South Pacific Ocean (SPOUA)”.
That area, Point Nemo, is a popular place for nations with space operations to dump their debris. Basically, in the “cemetery” there, more than 263 pieces from 1971 have been thrown there.
While the ISS may soon be withdrawn, NASA is already looking beyond it to the future. The agency is working with trading partners to attach docking modules to the station and also hopes to set up at least one of the three commercial space stations with the help of private industry.
NASA is still planning to send astronauts to the moon long before the station withdraws. Listed as part of a deep space exploration goal by 2030 in the transition plan, the agency hopes to use the ISS as “an analogue for a transit mission to Mars”.
It will be a sad end for one of the largest international science cooperatives ever undertaken and could mark the decline of the multinational approach to space research and exploration. Both China and Russia, for example, hope to set up their own space stations in the coming years. China has already sent astronauts to live in the first modules in orbit and plans to make its station fully operational by the end of the year.
I remember MIR, the Russian space station, withdrawn from use at the beginning of the millennium. The ISS has exceeded its use by a decade. By the way, according to the current context, the name of the Russian station translates to PEACE!