NASA plans to retire the International Space Station in the not too distant future. The plan for how it will do that is now ready, but it depends on the Russians’ plans.
When the Russians invaded Ukraine, the tension was even palpable on the ISS. The fact that the then leader of the Russian space agency Roscosmos publicly made negative and threatening statements about the space station, put things on edge. He was eventually fired by Putin and Yuri Borisov has held that position for some time now with much less violent statements about the ISS.
International Space Station
There are now developments about the space station, because it is still the intention to retire it and the plan with how and what is now ready at NASA. Russia supports the ISS until at least 2028 and for the space organizations of Europe, Japan and Canada and therefore that of the United States applies that the ISS will be used until 2030. 2030 is fast approaching and so plans are needed for how this important research lab of the astronauts will be removed.
NASA has already awarded SpaceX a contract to take the contraption out of orbit. The ISS would then re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and then crash into the sea. But knowing that the Russians have not yet made any commitments for 2028 to 2030, NASA is not entirely sure what to expect. It expects Roscosmos to announce its support plan in 2025 or 2026. The chance that it will also go for those two extra years is high: Roscosmos has few to no space projects involving people.
Cooperation between America and Russia
In any case, it is the end of an era when the ISS goes to the space retirement home. The ISS is one of the few activities that the Americans and Russians do together in a peaceful way.
If the ISS is indeed able to retire in 2030, then the expectation is that it will be brought back to Earth in early 2031. However, that may still depend on the development of other space stations, for example by private companies. After all, if the ISS is retired, NASA will not have a research center in orbit around the Earth. It would prefer an overlap between the ISS and what follows.
In short, there are certainly plans, but at the same time there are still many factors that could send the plans, and therefore the ISS, in a completely different direction.
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Source: www.bright.nl
