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
Because it is a flying bullet. All the pieces of it are flying bullets. Anything breaks off, it is a flying bullet to pierce anything else in orbit.
A fleck of paint at orbital speed.
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>why not leave the ISS in space…
Because the ISS isn’t very far into space. Its standard altitude is 408km which is technically in the very tenuous uppermost reaches of the atmosphere, and as such it actually experiences a very tiny amount of atmospheric drag, which means it occasionally needs to be boosted back up. If it were left alone without support it would eventually de-orbit itself, and while it’s statistically most likely to mostly burn up in the atmosphere with any remaining debris landing in the ocean the risk of ISS wreckage coming down over a populated area during an uncontrolled de-orbit is not zero, and would be “bad PR”.
>reuse it rather than literally throw the whole thing away
Because the ISS is getting old. Bits of it date from 1998 and have been in orbit for well over twenty years at this point when they were originally designed to have only a fifteen-year lifespan. There comes a point where servicing or preserving any piece of technology becomes significantly less cost-effective than simply replacing it. Its mission has already been extended – it was originally intended to be de-orbited by 2016 – and there’s a possibility it will be extended again beyond 2031 depending on the reliability of its existing systems and economic factors, but sooner or later it will end, and the responsible thing to do will be to safely and deliberately de-orbit it at that time.
Because America doesn’t like Russia anymore. And russia want to go partner up with china. China also build its own space station the tiangong. The reason Because America refused to let china join up in the ISS program, which was absurd and narrow minded. Now they mess up and lost out on a chance to partner up with china to build a new ISS.
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.
Have you ever stayed in a hotel in some smaller out of the way place, and it obviously hasnt had any serious renovation, updating, or serious overhaul since like the 80s? Things are “clean”, but everything’s just worn and dingy and chipped, furniture and carpet are worn, maybe there’s a bit of a smell of too much pine-sol and antiseptic? And all the built-in electronics and appliances are all just old and dated, and don’t really work with modern tech (no wireless charging pads built into the alarm clock, etc)?
The ISS is like that. It’s been up there for a LONG time, many many many years longer than it was ever designed to. It’s seen some additions and updates over the years, but a lot of it is just old and dated and worn. It’s getting tot he point that to keep it up there and useable, it would need a LOT of very very expensive updating and overhaul. To the point that it would probably be a lot more hassle and a lot more expensive to upgrade and update it, than it would be to just let it de-orbit and replace it with something new and modern and more efficient. At some point even your old trusty Honda Civic with 350,000 miles just gets too expensive to keep on the road, and it’d be cheaper to just replace it with something newer. Of course, that brings up the issue of, well whats replacing it? And right now the answer is… nothing. But there are some plans in the works, so who knows?
Compared to any other technological item, the ISS is ancient. It’s already exceeded its originally planned lifespan of 15 years(been in orbit since 1998). It’s tired, leaky, and requiring more cost and effort to maintain. It’s time to start investing in something not held back by its own legacy.
So they have already decided that they aren’t going to continue to maintain it, they cannot just leave it in space. The ISS loses 2km of altitude a month, so leaving it in space means they have to continue to use and maintain it. Reusing it isn’t an option, as that would hamstring whatever they would incorporate it into with old technology and standards. The only responsible way to end its mission is to de-orbit it in a controlled manner.
Because parts keep breaking and it’s getting more expensive to use and less able to be used and smells like sewage.
And keeping it requires a lot of money, even uncrewed.
Understand that the ISS is in low earth orbit. At its altitude, it is still subjected to atmosphere and is always being slowed down, albeit slowly. Being in the atmosphere reduces the radiation of space dramatically requiring far less shielding.
In order to preserve the ISS past its predicted shelf life would require upgrading the heavy shielding substantially and boost it to an altitude outside the atmosphere.
This would require nearly the weight of the ISS in fuel and shield mass.
At some point you have to accept that the ISS is going to be past its shelf life and start a new project. For humanity, that’s going to be the moon. The moon has water. Water can be separated into oxygen and hydrogen. That’s literally rocket fuel.
Being able to refuel rockets from the moon is far more cost effective and will unlock the rest of the solar system.
It’s like how some people will insist that a used car is better because it is cheap and any problems can be fixed. The reality is that the used car, especially one that’s 20 years old, tends to breakdown at the most inconvenient times. It then requires a lot of time and effort to fix the problem. That’s time and effort not spent driving the vehicle or doing other things. If there’s no money to fix the car, it’ll sit and decay due to disuse.
Now consider a space station. It has components that are difficult to get to and not designed to swap out. The modules can be very complex and troubleshooting may require all of the crew’s time. At a certain point, failures would be popping up faster than what can be addressed. Some failures can be fire hazards, which is really bad in space.
It rains down ‘super bacteria’ on Australia, infects snakes and spiders. Last Australian leaves 2031
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