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
Every material, mechanism or electronics has finite lifespan by design. Everything degrade over time due to diffusion or material fatigue so it is either prohibitively expensive or designed to fail in, say, 15 years.
When any complex mechanism be it a car, a house or the ISS reaches its end of life it starts to break in unexpected ways every few weeks. So it is either spending most time repairing stuff (and risking life btw, ISS has little unnecessary devices!) or build new station from scratch.
Latest Answers