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
In addition to what everyone has said here – in the 20+ years it has been in space, there are likely many, many parts which have gone obsolete.
Not only big parts, but the amount of small electronics that you cannot buy anymore is enormous. NASA likely would have bought out final stocks of components when they shut down the lines, but there gets a point where even those run out.
Therefore, you cannot fix the modules up there, and building a replacements to fit in the same slot out of new components is often more difficult and costly than building a whole new product.
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