The International Space Station will be destroyed in 2030 or 2031, according to NASA’s billion-dollar plan which we talked about recently. It is the end of its useful life, after its launch into orbit in 1998.
Since 2000 it has received astronauts of various nationalities, who carried out experiments and observations on our planet, benefiting the scientific world and everyone in general.
The approach from NASA is to shoot down, safely, the ISS. Initially, it was thought of working with the burning of engines of the Russian-made Progress robotic cargo vehicles; then, in the development of an exorbitant North American rover.
In either case, the station will end at the so-called Point Nemo, the oceanic area furthest from the mainland, located in the Pacific Ocean.
Many wonder why the space laboratory cannot be always active, We give you the answers below.
The signs of the end of the International Space Station
Facilities like the International Space Station they need regular maintenance, which is becoming increasingly expensive for both NASA and its partners. Hence, Russia, even before the invasion of Ukraine and the consequent tensions with the United States, decided not to work on it beyond 2025.
As the portal explains Planetary Society, the systems the ISS needs for power, communication with Earth, and crew life support are designed for in-orbit repaireither by astronauts or by robots.
But no matter what jobs you need, the natural degradation of the structure (remember that it has already been in orbit for more than two decades) limits its useful life.
Today, the International Space Station suffers enormous variations in its temperature, and with less and less protection, due to interaction with the outer space environment.
Even the constant coupling of the different ships affects the apparatus. The Planetary Society stresses that spacecraft dock with the ISS every three months: they all stress the structure, weakening the hull.
What comes for the future?
From there to NASA deciding not only to collapse the ISS by 2030 or 2031, but also give way to the development of commercial stations, run by companies like Axiom, Blue Origin, Nanoracks and Northrop Grumman, not to mention SpaceX.
Gateway would be the next bet of the aerospace agency, which would serve as a communications center, science lab, and short-term housing module, located in the orbit of the Moon.
The Artemis Program, which seeks to put the first woman and the next man on the Moon, represents a major step in that direction.