NASA is preparing to bid farewell to the International Space Station (ISS), awarding SpaceX an $843 million contract to safely deorbit the iconic structure. After its operational life concludes in 2030, SpaceX’s specially designed deorbit vehicle will drag the football field-sized ISS back to Earth. The station’s final descent will see it plunge into our planet’s atmosphere at a blistering speed of more than 17,000 mph (27,500 km/h), before ultimately landing in a fiery crashdown in the ocean.
This decision by NASA marks the end of an era for the ISS, a testament to global cooperation in space exploration. The floating laboratory, launched in 1998 with its first parts, has been continuously occupied by astronauts from the U.S., Japan, Russia, Canada, and Europe since 2000. During this time, astronauts have conducted over 3,300 scientific experiments while orbiting Earth. However, the ISS, despite its achievements, is showing its age. Maintenance and repairs continue to pose challenges for crews, and the contracts between the five participating national space agencies, forged in the spirit of post-Cold War cooperation, are set to expire by 2030.
Despite the 2030 end date appearing in NASA’s budget, the space agency is committed to keeping the ISS operational throughout the year. However, there’s no firm date for the ISS’s deorbit. The station will likely continue its mission until commercial space stations, like Axiom Space’s Axiom Station and the Orbital Reef designed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, come online by the end of this decade. These new stations are poised to replace the ISS as hubs for space exploration.
The responsibility for the safe deorbit of the ISS rests with all five space agencies, as stated by NASA. However, the specifics of their financial and technical involvement in SpaceX’s deorbiting operation remain unspecified. The fiery demise of the ISS won’t be the first of its kind. In 2001, Russia’s Mir space station also met a similar fate, plummeting back to Earth with its surviving fragments swallowed by the Pacific Ocean. As the ISS prepares for its final journey, the deorbiting process serves as a testament to the cyclical nature of space exploration, paving the way for new ventures and discoveries in the vast expanse beyond Earth.
