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According to:

”Moreover, the ISS end of life might come in 2025, and assuming you need a few years to graduate, more to get a degree, work experience, get hired, do the training... The ISS might not exist at that point anymore.” Antzi

I begin to have many thoughts of how ISS will die when we’ll reach that year.

What was in my mind?

  1. I was thinking NASA will take step by step parts from ISS.
  2. I was thinking that NASA will plant a bomb in ISS and evacuate every member of ISS.
  3. I was thinking that ISS will break apart naturally.

Can anyone please tell me how will ISS will end? Because, now I’m started to be curious how will that happen.

I tried to find on Internet, but my search has failed

Russell Borogove
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Alex A
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4 Answers4

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Left alone, the ISS would eventually re-enter the atmosphere within a couple of years due to the tiny amount of atmospheric drag at its current orbital altitude. That scenario isn't desirable, because it's very hard to predict where a natural re-entry like that will eventually land, and we don't want 400 tons of space junk to fall on someone's house. The ISS is periodically re-boosted to maintain its altitude.

Instead, when the decision is made to bring the ISS project to an end, it will be tanked up with extra fuel, and one or more unmanned Progress service craft will be used to make a reentry burn that drops the station in such a way that all the debris will fall safely into the ocean rather than on land.

No bombs need to be placed; the heat and force of reentry will break the station up pretty well. Some interior equipment may be salvaged (unlikely to be of much use to future missions; they'll probably be museum pieces) but none of the major components of the station can be re-used; they will be badly damaged or destroyed by reentry and splashdown.

Finally, 2025 is more than two US presidential elections in the future. Regardless of how the future plans for ISS stand at the moment, a lot could change between now and then.

Russell Borogove
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  • Great. Left alone. Why NASA don’t simply blow up ISS? And finish? – Alex A Oct 15 '18 at 20:08
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    Blowing it up would leave a lot of uncontrolled debris in orbit for a few years to come, which would be a hazard to everything else in low Earth orbit. It's much better to push it into the atmosphere in a controlled way. – Russell Borogove Oct 15 '18 at 20:09
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    Besides, adjusting orbits is tried-and-true for NASA - they have considerable experience at it. It's straightforward for them, and they know it works. It just seems like that would be the safer, simpler approach, rather than take the time to develop and analyze a new solution. – Don Branson Oct 15 '18 at 20:30
  • Why can’t they simply take parts from ISS including metals so that they can reuse it? Instead of destroying ISS. – Alex A Oct 15 '18 at 20:49
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    I would guess they could take and recycle/reuse - but I also think that some of the things that seems simple to the layperson also have complexities that we wouldn't expect. For example, think of the complexity of dismantling a car in your garage. It's a fair bit of work. Now imagine yourself doing it in a stiff, bulky spacesuit, and going back in the house periodically to replenish your oxygen. I just think the "why can't they simply" questions have answers along the lines of, "it's not as simple as you think." – Don Branson Oct 15 '18 at 20:54
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    @AlexA, there's not much on the ISS that would be worth re-using in a new space station -- most of it will be obsolete, worn-out, or both. The solar panels, for example, will be 30-year-old technology with 25 years of micrometeorite damage. – Mark Oct 15 '18 at 21:01
  • @Mark what about metals? Can’t they be reused? – Alex A Oct 15 '18 at 21:08
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    @AlexA, too hard to separate the metals from the rest of it in space, and even if you could, nobody's figured out how to do large-scale metalworking in zero gravity. – Mark Oct 15 '18 at 21:12
  • @Mark they could use lasers to cut? – Alex A Oct 15 '18 at 21:18
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    @AlexA If you want to make a reliable, durable space station, it's best not to start with small pieces of corroded scrap metal floating in space. – Sneftel Oct 15 '18 at 21:24
  • @Sneftel what you say, makes a lot of sense. – Alex A Oct 15 '18 at 21:24
  • @RussellBorogove Is it atmospheric drag, or simply the gravitational pull of the earth? – GetSwifty Oct 15 '18 at 22:00
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    @PEEJWEEJ drag. If there were no drag, it would simply continue to orbit. – Mr.Mindor Oct 15 '18 at 22:12
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    Why not just give the ISS a gentle shove and send it elsewhere in the solar system? Push it in a direction where it will (eventually) go into the sun or crash into Jupiter or just head for the next galaxy over? That would preclude anything bad happening to Earth if something goes wrong with the deorbiting plan. If we send it into the sun or somewhere that has no life, we won't give anyone else trouble either. – Henry Oct 16 '18 at 04:00
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    @Henry : because that would need an insane amount of fuel. – vsz Oct 16 '18 at 04:54
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    @Alex, for starters, NASA doesn't simply own ISS single-handedly, to be able to blow it up on its own accord... – Zeus Oct 16 '18 at 08:38
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    @Mr.Mindor But without the gravity it would not descend ;-). – Peter - Reinstate Monica Oct 16 '18 at 09:18
  • @vsz - I don't understand. I'm talking about enough fuel to get it started in some safe direction and then just letting it drift. That shouldn't require too much fuel should it? – Henry Oct 16 '18 at 13:04
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    @Henry : unfortunately, it would. If you follow the link on my reply, you will see the numbers. Spacecraft don't really "drift". Satellites and space stations don't stay up because they drift far from the gravity of the Earth. They stay up because they are going insanely fast. Please read this short article for a better understanding: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ To move at a speed which counteracts the Earth's gravity, they need to go very very fast, this is why they need such big rockets to get to orbit. To actually escape Earth, they would need to go even faster than that. – vsz Oct 16 '18 at 13:13
  • @Mark I agree about the lack of wisdom in trying to salvage parts of the ISS; the the Russians have occasionally talked about pulling some or all of their parts from the current ISS to serve as part of a new station they'd build as a successor. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Oct 16 '18 at 17:26
  • @Henry Despite what the movies say, orbital mechanics don't really work like that. – Lightness Races in Orbit Oct 17 '18 at 09:31
  • How euphemist formulations: "reentry burn", "ISS Project to an end". The next U.S. president will be likely a "D", and they want to convert the NASA to a semi-space agency, working on to prove the global warming by satellites. – peterh Sep 12 '19 at 01:51
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The hypersonic research facility where I work is currently involved in this question.

As mentioned above, the orbit of the ISS would eventually decay due to atmospheric drag. Over its life this has been addressed by several methods; at night the solar arrays are rotated to limit the (very tiny amount of) drag from the upper atmosphere, and the space shuttle had on more than one occasion docked with the ISS and used its manoeuvre thrusters to place it back in a higher orbit. Don't quote me on this but I believe this is the main reason for retiring it, now the shuttle is no longer used; there's no way to fix the decaying orbit any more. The fact some of the computers on board are late 90s technology is another reason.

As also mentioned above, letting it fall down naturally is a bad thing; it needs to be deorbited with a degree of precision. It's outside my area but this would likely be done with a small booster mounted on the front of the station. The plan is to aim near the east coast of new Zealand and put it down in the pacific Ocean. This is the main area of interest; if it doesn't break up correctly, some parts might reach the west coast of the USA; parts of mir hit the land instead of the ocean, and mir was a lot smaller then the ISS.

The deorbit profile is also important; it needs to be bought down at a shallow enough angle to allow it to burn up as much as possible (but too slow would risk it being over the USA). Bringing it in at a steeper angle prevents it from reaching the USA but doesn't give enough time for it to burn up, meaning most of it will hit the ocean (or land if someone really miscalculates). Such a large object hitting the ground causes its own problems.

As for what actually happens, this is part of what we've been researching with small scale models in a hypersonic wind tunnel. The solar panels will tear off fairly quickly when it hits the atmosphere. The modules do break apart and tumble away eventually, but there is also some merit in decoupling them from each other first; they spread out more during reentry (more likely of hitting something on the ground) but less likely of coming down in one huge heavy lump.

So as you see, it's a difficult task to do safely.

Nathan
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    Just to clarify: the ISS orbit is being re-boosted fairly regularly with the available technology as explained in this answer https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9087/how-often-does-iss-require-re-boosting-to-higher-orbit – user2705196 Oct 16 '18 at 15:00
  • @DavidRicherby: Considering the two emptiest targets are the deep south pacific (mostly below Austrailia) and the north pacific, and the ISS is in the wrong plane to hit the deep south pacific, the USA is the most likely land to hit. – Joshua Oct 16 '18 at 16:17
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    @David Richerby: I went back and checked my orbital dynamics. If the deorbit is targeted at 60 degrees S below Austrailia, the first land mass other than tiny islands is California. – Joshua Oct 16 '18 at 16:48
  • @Joshua OK, so I'd misunderstood. The claim is that the US is where it's most likely to hit if the planned deorbit goes wrong. I thought it was being claimed that the US was the most likely place for the ISS to hit if it was allowed to just fall out of orbit uncontrolled. I've deleted my comments. Thanks for explaining. – David Richerby Oct 16 '18 at 17:00
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Russell's answer discusses what will actually happen, so I'll just comment on your suggestions.

  1. I was thinking NASA will take step by step parts from ISS.

This would be extremely expensive and would just move your question one level farther back: how would they get the parts back to earth?

  1. I was thinking that NASA will plant a bomb in ISS and evacuate every member of ISS.

That would be a really bad way of dealing with it. It would turn the ISS into 400 tons and billions of pieces of space junk. Basically, all the bits of the ISS would be whizzing around in orbit at high speeds, colliding with everything else that's up there and damaging and destroying it. At the speeds involved, even small particles of debris can have large amounts of kinetic energy and cause serious damage to whatever they hit. (Think about how fast things are thrown out of explosions. On earth, they get slowed down a lot by air resistance; not so in orbit.)

  1. I was thinking that ISS will break apart naturally.

It will but then you have the problem that it just falls wherever it falls and, because the ISS is so big, parts of it will reach earth. That could happen anywhere between about 52° north and 52° south, which includes most of the world's major populated areas.

David Richerby
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  • And where exactly are the areas which will fall? If it were to land some parts of ISS in your land, are you even allowed to take few parts from it? Such as metals, because NASA doesn’t need it anymore so, who needs it? – Alex A Oct 16 '18 at 14:44
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    It could be anywhere between the two latitudes I mentioned. You should ask a new question about who owns any lumps of satellite that fall to the ground -- I don't know the answer. And please note: the ISS is an international collaboration. You keep talking about NASA as if they are the only agency involved. – David Richerby Oct 16 '18 at 14:51
  • Ok, sorry. I’m used to talk that NASA owns the ISS, because that’s how I used to believe. – Alex A Oct 16 '18 at 14:52
  • @AlexA NASA can't let anybody take parts because space technology is tightly controlled by international law (Wassenaar Agreement) since it is also useful to make ballistic missiles with. – user71659 Oct 16 '18 at 16:38
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    @user71659 If something that doesn't belong to NASA falls in a field in a country that isn't the USA, how exactly does NASA get to "let" or "not let" anyone do anything with that thing? – David Richerby Oct 16 '18 at 16:46
  • @DavidRicherby Simple: by ensuring the ISS is destroyed in such a way that there is no reasonable means of recovery. And actually its stricter than that, export control licenses may stipulate that the technology is recovered or destroyed at the end of life. Export control laws are very strict and broad, and if you don't comply, you simply don't get the information or technology. – user71659 Oct 16 '18 at 16:52
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    "NASA currently has no capability to reach the ISS" NASA doesn't build the rockets themselves, but many US rocket companies that NASA buy services from have the ability to easilly reach the ISS. What they don't have right now is a stack that is certified to carry people to/from the ISS. – Peter Green Oct 16 '18 at 17:23
  • @PeterGreen Fair point. I deleted those two sentences, since they were mainly nitpicking anyway. And a nitpick that isn't accurate is... not useful. :-) – David Richerby Oct 16 '18 at 17:24
  • Very little that is salvageable will reach the ground. Some melted bits of airlock door or junction node that do not burn up may hit things. – KalleMP Oct 16 '18 at 21:18
  • Crashed satellites still belong to nation that owned them. This includes liability for any damages it causes, according to the Outer Space Treaty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Liability_Convention https://www.livescience.com/33519-falling-satellite-damage-liability.html – Mike Miller Oct 16 '18 at 21:22
  • Though, I am not sure how this works if a country launches a satellite for another country. Or if a private company such as SpaceX launches a satellite. My guess is the rocket belongs to SpaceX and the payload belongs to the client. – Mike Miller Oct 16 '18 at 21:23
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    @MikeMiller SpaceX is licensed to perform it's various flights; and is not a country. This means that if the satellite or rocket falls down; the treaty says that the US - being the rocket launch country - will have to pay to repair the damage; but the license conditions may state that SpaceX must cover any damage that can be traced back to them. Basically, the buck stops at the country of launch; but what they do internally no one cares. – UKMonkey Oct 17 '18 at 12:30
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Some say the ISS will die in fire
Some say it will be towed into a graveyard orbit
But from what I've tasted of the expense of heavy lift rockets,
I hold with those that favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of orbital mechanics
To say that for disassembly and module reuse
Is also great
And would suffice.
Mike Miller
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    I doubt there's a graveyard orbit for the ISS. Graveyard orbits are used for satellites in geo-stationary orbits, and are reached by lifting the orbit to higher than GEO. You'd need insane amounts of fuel to lift the ISS above 36000km. – Jens Oct 17 '18 at 08:31