NASA announced that President Joe Biden has committed to keeping the ISS running until 2030.
NASA
- NASA plans to crash the International Space Station into the ocean in 2031, according to Sky News.
- It marks the beginning of a transition to privately run space missions.
- The location that NASA is aiming for is close to Point Nemo.
The International Space Station (ISS) has helped expand our knowledge of the universe, fostered the birth of the space industry, and led the international community’s scientific collaboration.
“The International Space Station is a beacon of peaceful international scientific collaboration and for more than 20 years has returned enormous scientific, educational, and technological developments to benefit humanity,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
But its days are nevertheless numbered. Like all space exploration missions, the ISS has a lifespan which is gradually nearing its end.
NASA’s station, which weighs 419,725 kilograms, will be redirected and brought into the atmosphere so it can crash land in the middle of the ocean by January 2031, according to Sky News.
NASA announced that President Joe Biden has committed to keeping the ISS running until 2030.
“Extending operations through 2030 will continue another productive decade of research advancement and enable a seamless transition of capabilities in low-Earth orbit to one or more commercially owned and operated destinations in the late 2020s,” NASA said in a statement.
According to Sky, the ISS lifespan has been increased to 2030 to allow the private sector to develop the necessary technology.
The report also says that NASA confirmed to the US Congress that it will keep at least a couple of its astronauts on these privately-owned space stations.
The ISS will splash down in a controlled manner
The ISS typically orbits at an altitude of about 253 miles in low Earth orbit and takes between 90 and 93 minutes to complete one orbit of Earth, making about 16 orbits per day, depending on the altitude it’s at.
By January 2031, NASA plans to slowly lower the ISS into the atmosphere, where the increasing density of the atmosphere will increase air resistance.
The speed of the structure will also create a lot of heat, which may cause it to begin to break up.
This is why NASA is aiming to crash the ISS into the middle of the ocean. The location that NASA is aiming for is Point Nemo, in the south Pacific Ocean.
Point Nemo is the furthest point on Earth from any land, and this has led it to become a “space cemetery,” according to Interesting Engineering.
There are a number of external factors that may affect the ISS’s controlled descent — for example, according to Sky, high solar activity could cause the ISS to miss its landing point.
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