NASA plans to deorbit the ISS sometime around 2030. Building something the size of the ISS in orbit is a huge undertaking and NASA keeps talking about wanting to build new space stations or a moon base, so why not leave the ISS in space and reuse it rather than literally throw the whole thing away?
In: Planetary Science
2 big reasons:
1. It costs 3 Billion a year to run and maintain the IIS… NASA’s budget is around 24B and wants to “go to the moon then mars”. These moon/mars mission are going to cost a lot and NASA needs room in the budget to do those things.
2. The IIS is starting to get old. Many of the components were built in the 90’s and there are signs that the station is hitting its end of life. There are small leaks on the station, all lot of systems are out of date and at some point the station needs to be overhauled (at great expense) in order to maintain its safety.
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