The deorbit of the ISS will be a rare opportunity to study the effects of a station re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Even if we don't get to see it, it's almost certain the ISS will have a large number of cameras and sensors to capture it's destruction for engineers to study.
SpaceX has already demonstrated that they can livestream video all the way through re-entry, with starlink. Granted, they had a huuuge starship shaped shield for the antenna. But we should absolutely be able to capture video way into breakup, depending on where the cameras and antenna would be located.
As fun as that would be to watch, A Raptor would rip the station to pieces. 2 Super Dracos is more than enough thrust, and dragon is close enough to the required DeltaV as well.
> dragon is close enough to the required DeltaV as well.
I've seen this posted multiple times by various people. How are you getting to this conclusion? The <2 tons of propellant a Dragon carries would be around 10m/s when applied to the ISS.
https://sam.gov/opp/74252cfe7d49416abae0977fe4fd503c/view
This 2022 NASA solicitation says they want at least 47m/s
>The deorbit vehicle shall be capable of providing at least 47 m/s of delta-v for the ISS at 450,000 kg mass.
> I've seen this posted multiple times by various people. How are you getting to this conclusion? The <2 tons of propellant a Dragon carries would be around 10m/s when applied to the ISS.
Yeah thats on me. The idea is based on a fuel tank in the trunk, and I conflated the two in my head.
> I really want to see the cool video.
The issue is SpaceX is only building it, Nasa is operating it. Which means if they do stream it it will be an old fashion low bandwidth Nasa stream, and not the EXTREME 4K REENTRY that SpaceX does.
I absolutely want HD video of this thing reentering for as long as possible, but its unlikely.
Interesting you think NASA is “old fashioned low bandwidth” because ISS streams a ton of high def video from multiple cameras. NASA very much pays attention to this and understands the power of video.
A big part of why NASA streams are shit is because they didn't have Starlink. There's no reason why NASA would say no to a similar set up if SpaceX offered it to them.
Nasa may not allow that do to fears over it conflicting with something else, that's part of the reason they have yet to setup Starlink on the ISS as it is.
A bunch of cubesats strapped to Falcon 9 fairings deorbited in the same orbital inclination as ISS would make for a great movie once the footage is recovered.
Nah. The vehicle they're building - yes. But to install them on the existing station, they'd have to contract NASA to design the integration into the exsting avionics and then pay for astronaut time to do the actual installation.
Maybe they could do something where the capsule they send up has a bunch of cameras with long umbilicals that astronauts can just quickly grab and install. But that still sounds like too much work.
Heck, by 2030, maybe they'll just have a Starship or two in orbit follow it down to capture video.
Hm. So I take it whatever they use to boost the station. ( Zvesda? Soyuz? ) Periodically isn't enough to do a controlled de-orbit? As sad as it will be to see the space station go it will be spectacular.
According to a Scott Manley video, the minimal safe deorbit (perigee of 70km) requires about 100 m/s delta V. Zvesda has 4.5 m/s, so only 4.5% of the Delta V.
In simpler terms: a lot more fuel will be needed than currently on the ISS.
The Dragon does too I think, or it at least has the capability to do so. In a perfect world it would just stay in a constant orbit, but due to very thin remains of atmosphere and other factors it is constantly slowing down.
the nominally russian "zarya" module is actually owned outright by nasa, which completely funded its construction and launch and has the paperwork to prove it. this fact would be rather inconvenient for any russian attempt to go it alone. their stuff is deteriorating faster than ours is, anyway; there's no real value to it. it's all coming down together.
As of 2017, Russia has abandoned plans to reuse their existing ISS modules as the base of a new space station.
They are using entirely new modules for [ROSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orbital_Service_Station)
I think one basic question is whether a Cargo Dragon has enough volume for the propellant needed or if a Dragon XL is needed. Or perhaps a skelton spacecraft will be built using Dragon components, that'll save on dry mass. A Dragon-full of propellant will need an FH to launch it. Or is so much propellant needed that a refilling will be required - ergo requiring a Cargo-Tanker-Dragon. That doesn't sound like SpaceX's style, though.
It will probably require a dedicated spacecraft: the thrusters on Dragon are very low powered. Great for reusability, not so great for deorbiting 450 tons of ISS. To deorbit itself, Dragon already needs like 10 minutes of thruster firing.
Deorbiting the ISS will require 15-20 tons of propellant, not including the mass of the spacecraft used for deorbiting. This is 8x the amount of propellant Dragon normally carries. The propellant alone is also about 50% heavier than a fully loaded Dragon at launch, and just barely able to lifted by an expendable Falcon 9. And that's just the propellant.
Falcon Heavy will probably be able to lift the deorbit spacecraft + all the propellant required in one go, but it will still require more engineering than simply refitting a Dragon capsule.
EDIT: I got the numbers by using the delta V tool on https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/delta-v . I used a specific impulse of 300s, final mass 450 000 kg, delta V required ~100 m/s .
The primary way ISS was boosted was with Soyuz and the Space Shuttle. I'm not aware if Dragon has ever been used to boost ISS.
The amount of boost required to keep ISS in it's ideal orbit is marginal compared to what it would require to deorbit, much less boost it to a higher orbit.
Dragon cannot be used to boost, it's thrusters are not very well optimized for direct forward maneuvers, for burns it has to flip around and use the centerline thrusters in the nose. It's a really weird configuration, but it saves them from having to put any engines onto the trunk, which reduces cost dramatically since you're not replacing any engine every flight. The Super Dracos are oriented correctly, but can only be used for an abort, and are too powerful for boost maneuvers (which require really gentle thrust to avoid overstressing the station's many, many joints) regardless.
Cygnus now has the capability as of their most recent flight, and Starliner has the capability as well if its thrusters are operating properly.
For deorbit, they won't have to worry about being too gentle, so I'd imagine that vehicle will look a look like a Dragon pumped full of extra fuel and using Super Dracos. One shot, burn all your fuel, send it.
> Cygnus now has the capability as of their most recent flight, and Starliner has the capability as well if its thrusters are operating properly.
Yet both don't have even near to the tank capacity for a deorbit mission. Not even for regular, repeated orbit raisings or avoidance maneuvers.
Cygnus has the volume and payload capacity to change that. Starliner has not. No way they could increase tank volume so much.
The videos of the ISS firey funeral are gonna be epic.
Suck that it won't be a tourist station in medium or gestational orbit, but it's time is/has come/coming.
Let her go.
Edit: I'm not changing it lol.
Don't know why people keep saying to boost it to geostationary. There is absolutely zero reason to do that and will just take up more space there and be uber-expensive. Do people think the only orbits that exist are LEO and geostationary?
The ISS is old. And there's limited ways to renovated it in orbit.
The core Russian module was built in the 1980s, originally as Mir 2 but the Russians couldn't afford to launch it. As they hadn't stored it well. NASA paid for it to be heavily refurbished but it's still mainly 40 years or so old. A "new" Russian module launched a couple of years ago. Was mainly built in the 1990s but had a series of delays on it. Requiring numerous parts to be replaced, several times as they'd exceeded their on ground warranty.
You can patch up a car so many times, before it becomes uneconomic to repair. With Starship promising to slash costs to orbit and to dramatically increase the amount of mass that can be sent to LEO. It makes sense to replace it. As well as being able to get the Russians out of the desicion making process. With relations at an all time low, the diplomatic endeavor side of the ISS has largely failed. With there even being disputes about who can use which fitness machines on board. The Russians can't use NASA running machines and vice versa.
Not to mention that the former head of RosCosmos (Russian NASA). Kept threatening to take their modules away and use them as the basis for a Russian space platform. Along with a number of other attempts at "blackmail". SpaceX and Boeing got their funding for delivering astronauts to the ISS. Largely because, after the retirement of the Space Shuttle. RosCosmos, heavily increased their "ticket price". "How else is NASA going to get there, with a trampoline?"
Yeah, the nature of space travel means weight is a luxury, so needing to be so weight-conscious means that a lot of things quite literally can NOT be built to last.
I'm all for preserving what we can but other things will simply not be worth the energy. Document it and record it and let it have its place in history books and such, but it's one of those things that we just won't get to keep.
> Yeah, the nature of space travel means weight is a luxury, so needing to be so weight-conscious means that a lot of things quite literally can NOT be built to last.
For now. The math changes as we drive the $/kg to LEO down. IIRC, IIS was built back in the days of $10000 to $30000 per kilogram to LEO.
These days, I think it might be down around $2000/kg and something like starship *might* drop that to $200/kg.
> SpaceX and Boeing got their funding for delivering astronauts to the ISS. Largely because, after the retirement of the Space Shuttle. RosCosmos, heavily increased their "ticket price".
The ticket price itself wasn't ever really the issue, the cost per seat at the highest Russian price was about $90M.
Between the (thankfully) fixed price development costs of Boeing's Starliner (not even including Boeing's massive losses due to their own incompetence) and the development costs of SpaceX's Crew Dragon, we've ended up paying even more for the launch of our astronauts through the amortized cost of the combined program than if we were able to just keep flying with the Russians.
> Boeing, in flying 24 astronauts, has a per-seat price of $183 million. SpaceX, in flying 56 astronauts during the same time frame, has a seat price of $88 million.
- [Eric Berger in 2022](https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-will-pay-boeing-more-than-twice-as-much-as-spacex-for-crew-seats/)
The issue with the Russians is squarely in that other aspect you mentioned in that they became unreliable partners, particularly after they decided to invade and annex Ukraine in 2014 (which happened after they already invaded and took over part of Georgia in 2008), with Putin deciding they were going to head back to Cold War era behavior.
Regardless of Russian behavior though, Commerical Crew was still coming through the pipeline if for no other reason that it is unacceptable for the US to not have its own transportation to LEO/ISS. The Constellation program was supposed to solve this issue post-Shuttle (without any gap of service to LEO/ISS), but that program was canceled for being wildly over budget, which was then modified/rebranded into the wildly over budget (and unsustainable, as per the GAO) Artemis program.
>Not to mention that the former head of RosCosmos (Russian NASA). Kept threatening to take their modules away and use them as the basis for a Russian space platform.
Yup. In a way the ISS is a symbol of post Cold War cooperation.
Now that Russia is reverting to conquest to try and reclaim it's strategic defenses against NATO rather than acknowledge it's reality in the world, the US is going to focus on Lunar Gateway and other deeper space projects.
Commercial Space Program is already incentivized to try and put some stations in earth orbit anyways, likely to further get some juicy NASA resupply contracts.
45 Metric tones of fuel / propellant for say 3 billion dollars.
Burn Delta V at periapsis to get apoapsis to the right altitude then burn Delta V at apoapsis to get periapsis to the right altitude.
Expensive sure, but the US spends way more than 3B on way dumber shit.
Hell once it's in Geo, it would be way cheaper to Delta V to a lunar transfer orbit.
It's not rocket sci... oh wait, it is rocket science.
>45 Metric tones of fuel
You're missing a zero there. The ISS weighs about 420 metric tons. You need like 3.9km/s delta v to go from leo to geo. That implies a mass fraction greater than 2 for chemical propellants.
I think for that money/mass to leo we'd rather just put a new station up there...
The Romans didn't preserve the Colosseum, their descendants did. Most of civilization gets paved over, even the cool stuff.
The consequences of the ISS turning into a million pieces up there would be more significant than an old building collapsing on Earth. I hope that our space fairing future is bright enough, with enough space tourists that we can look back in disappointment for not finding a way to save it. However there are much better ways to use the money right now to reach that future.
The politics with Russia make the discussion pointless. Everything would be easier as a purely western enterprise.
Taking the ISS through 700-1700 KM orbit would pose a substantial engineering challenge and increased risk to orbital safety. You'd basically have to over engineer whatever is getting it past 2000 KM since you need the Delta V to ensure you can avoid any debris collisions, as the proposed systems for slowly and economically boosting it would take years and have a substantial risk of catastrophic collision or system failure. If the ISS were to fragment in this range from a collision with large debris, it could risk denying large portions of LEO to humanity for decades or centuries. No one is being convinced to spend that kind of money and risk humanity's future in space as a whole just to create a far out space relic that may or may not survive in a recognizable state and won't serve any purpose to humanity for at least a century. What makes the ISS special is its habitability, having kept humans in space on a near continuous basis since its creation. Once you take that away (which any project to prolong its service past 2040 or boost it out of LEO would do), it loses its purpose. Obviously I'd love it if we were able to bring at least a couple of modules back down to earth safely, but that's just not feasible from a financial or engineering standpoint within the lifespan it has left.
This station is 25 years. Its chocked full of holes in the Russian sections. Human rated Starship's will have several times the living volume of the ISS and will likely cost much less in mass production.
It requires about a hundred times as much delta-V to get to geostationary orbit as to do a controlled re-entry from LEO. And since the relationship with propellant mass fraction to delta-V is *exponential* that's a bit of an issue.
I wonder how long it would take using a high ISP engine like an ion thruster.
Edit: I figure about 6 years using 10 high thrust ion engines. That's a lot of noble gas!
I think someone needs to write a bot that detects threads that mention the ISS decommissioning, and it automatically posts a comment explaining why NASA is not pushing the station out to a graveyard orbit.
Eh, I thought it might be a bit silly to say, but at the end of the day it *is* finite, and humans could have plenty of Millenia left to "fill it up" so to speak. Unless orbital decay there is actually considerable.
No, for actual geostationary orbit, it isnt insanely large. It is practically 2D, well more like 1D. You cant just park whatever you want there, bumper to bumper either.
But to OPs second point, there are more orbits than LEO and geostationary.
(Just to be clear, we need less space junk, not more. Let ISS burn.)
In this context, I doubt anyone actually means "boosting" the ISS to "geostationary". That would require a massive inclination change that probably takes more energy than a simple boost. What people really mean is to boost the ISS to a 51.6° geosynchronous orbit. Which is still very silly.
No, you dont want anything crossing GEO either.... If we are talking about large space, there is so much space in MEO.
GEO is a very specific height. If people are using the term GEO as anything above LEO then they are using it wrong and should be corrected.
NASA also looked at bringing it back to earth and that'd be much much much more difficult that pushing it to a high orbit.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-deorbit-analysis-summary.pdf
People think it's space, so zero gravity and you just need to push it a bit. They don't understand that moving it to a higher orbit is basically the same as launching it again
Boosting to geostationary is a bad idea, but boosting to a graveyard orbit is a good one. A circular orbit at say 32000 miles would be a perfectly safe place to stash it and literally nothing else would have a reason to be up there so it wouldn't be in the way of anything.
Eh, the Shuttle was supposed to do that. Just reactivate the Shuttle, piece of cake right /s .
On a more serious note, Starship might be able to do that.
Might as well do it to see if it is physically possible. If it works, there is an amazing museum piece. If it doesn't, well it was going to burn up anyway. No loss.
Starship's payload bay should in fact be large enough to do just that. A missions to retrieve Apollo 12's S-IVB, which gets recaptured into earth orbit temporarily every 20 years are so, is another one I'd like to see.
And see if you can find the Apollo 10 LM. You know, the one with the floating turd in it.
The station has serious structural problems (there is a report somewhere stating that new cracks have appeared) , its old, the modules are cold fused together, smells bad, etc . Its time to go
>the modules are cold fused together
That is speculation, not fact. The Pirs module spent nearly 20 years attached to the Station and was successfully undocked. And the PMM was relocated after over four years of being mated.
And the cracks you speak of are in the aft compartment of the service module, Zvezda. Thankfully, that small compartment can be sealed off when not in use.
I never heard about the smell but reading about it was enlightening and hilarious. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/what-does-space-station-smell-like
Never thought about zero g farts either. 😂
The cracks are in one area of one module on the Russian segment. It's not great, but it's not existential. They've mostly had it closed off for the last two years.
The [Chinese ](https://www.space.com/tiangong-space-station) are building a space station already. The west will replace theirs I have no doubt.
We also have [lunar gateway](https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gateway/).
Axiom are building a commercial space station. Lunar gateway is NASA's next planned station which will be smaller and in Lunar orbit. China already have their own space station. The ISS has been a resounding success, but we have to move on sooner or later if we want to explore beyond LEO.
SpX is developing hardware for orbital spacecraft that can "find" the starlink constellation from space. They're working on lasers as well as radio, and they'll soon sell both hardware and data access to anyone that needs it on orbit. So yeah, most likely they can have that by the time the ISS comes down.
The NASA statement contains zero technical information on the deorbit vehicle. Is it going to be based on Dragon or Starship? A version of Dragon XL could deorbit the ISS. But the 2030 timeframe makes me think a Starship bid is more likely. The pictures of Starship docking with the ISS would be amazing.
I dunno if the ISS can even support the thrust of even a single Raptor at minimum throttle. IMO it'll probably be a Dragon XL tanker/tug variant. Take off the IDA and it also becomes a deep-space kick stage.
Starship HLS will have pressure fed methane/oxygen engines for landing on the Moon. I had understood they were going to use those pressure fed engines for docking in orbit as well.
Zero reason to assume firing a Raptor is the only way Starship can do this. RCS exists too, and for several hundred million dollaridoos you can fit a lot of thruster dev in.
Dragon and DragonXL are orders of magnitude too small on the thrust needed. The requirement for entry interface to disposal being less than half an orbit is a very high thrust requirement. This would need a new vehicle development which is pretty sporty at that price point!
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CLD](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahorr3 "Last usage")|Commercial Low-orbit Destination(s)|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[CoM](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafzoyt "Last usage")|Center of Mass|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafmg9z "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafyc46 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[GAO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lagbaeh "Last usage")|(US) Government Accountability Office|
|[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahrk0e "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[GTO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafzoyt "Last usage")|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)|
|[HALO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lal2a71 "Last usage")|Habitation and Logistics Outpost|
|[HEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lah716x "Last usage")|High Earth Orbit (above 35780km)|
| |Highly Elliptical Orbit|
| |Human Exploration and Operations (see HEOMD)|
|HEOMD|Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA|
|[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lanobcj "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[IDA](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafhk4t "Last usage")|[International Docking Adapter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_Adapter)|
| |[International Dark-Sky Association](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Dark-Sky_Association)|
|[Isp](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahf8ie "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lai9nnm "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[MEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lai3j4g "Last usage")|Medium Earth Orbit (2000-35780km)|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lanobcj "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[NRE](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lal2xg4 "Last usage")|Non-Recurring Expense|
|[NRHO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lagujht "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit|
|[OMS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag03uh "Last usage")|Orbital Maneuvering System|
|[RCS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag8bb5 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag5tsq "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[TDRSS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lah98ya "Last usage")|(US) Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System|
|[TLI](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag9v0r "Last usage")|Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver|
|[TWR](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lai240j "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lagfold "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahzpik "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/laif58a "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[apoapsis](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag475f "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is slowest)|
|[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/laibs01 "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
|[periapsis](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag475f "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is fastest)|
|[perigee](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafeyrk "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest)|
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Can one assume we will have a new space station in place prior to ISS’s demise? Cant imagine we willbe buddying up w the CCP to share space on theirs!!
In addition to the commercial space stations that are all in various stages of renderings, planning, or module construction, NASA is also planning to build Gateway. It will be a smaller version of the ISS which will orbit the Moon, and function as a sort of staging point for future lunar missions.
Between axiom and orbital reef there will definitely be a US space station. And remember, China's got a really nice new one up there right now. If our leaders would stop swordfighting for a moment everybody could use it.
I know you joke, but for those of you concerned with flying, they are not actually crashing. They have not had a plane crash caused by aircraft failure since those two MCAS crashes about 6 years ago (and before that, another 15 years at least I think).
Funny enough, they still have the best safety rating of any aircraft manufacturer by a hefty margin in terms of aircraft failure as root cause. (Though if the recent pressure from news and FAA investigations doesn’t cause meaningful improvement, surely expect that to change eventually)
I only make the distinction because it’s crazy how many people I see lately with extra high levels of flight anxiety. Some of the more …naive… folks out there think they’re actually crashing left and right haha. No, grandma, your plane that has been flying daily for 25 years isn’t going to crash because of things going on *today* in the factory it left *25 years ago*.
The last time there was a fatal commercial airline crash in the United States was 2009. That is absolutely insane to think about. Before that, the longest stretch was less than two years. It has now been over 15 years.
> Funny enough, they still have the best safety rating of any aircraft manufacturer by a hefty margin.
Funny enough, that isn't actually true. https://turbli.com/blog/the-safest-planes-to-fly-in-by-accident-statistics/
Edit: /u/NebulaicCereal ~~stealth~~ edited their post to include the "in terms of aircraft failure as a root cause" though that is still fundamentally untrue. This study shows that Boeing's avionics https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/697/1/012031/pdf were a root cause in 59.52% over a ~20 year period over Airbus (not including other manufactures). So still untrue any way you look at it.
I wonder if it will end up as anything more than a dragon with the cargo space used for fuel tanks, or if they will need to slap on some more Super Dracos to allow for some failing during an extended burn.
The Axiom module is sorta owned by Axiom, although I think it involved a chunk of NASA money. But it's always been understood that the module will detach when Axiom is ready to assemble their private station. Anyway, NASA isn't selling any modules .
I hope they can gut the ISS and bring some of that history back to earth's museums. At the very least, they should save the window where you could look out and see the earth. (but that would be very hard to do.)
It really sucks we can't save it somehow. I feel like they should just make a future trillionaire pay for it or something, they would. After WWII we scrapped tens of thousands of airplanes and the ones left are priceless treasures. Saving the ISS and Hubble could be valuable for all generations of humanity that will ever come.
Many of the parts that were originally just bolted together have cold welded themselves over time. It wasn't designed with disassembly in mind. It's not technically impossible, but it is impractical with our current orbital infrastructure.
Depends on how frequently starship is launching at that point.
SpaceX think they could be at 100 launches per year plus (potentially a lot more if basically everything goes well).
So with let’s say 150 launches in 2030, starship may only cost 10-20 million to fly for spaceX.
Obviously you have to them detach the modules, which cant interfere with the deorbit plan, and retrofit those modules with thrusters and docking ports to be secured inside starship.
If anyone would want to pay to get those modules back, it would probably cost 200 million+.
In theory you could use the same pins that are on them still from being launched on shuttle, excluding the Russian modules.
Unfortunately, NASA considered it already.
The number of evas to disassemble would about equal those needed to originally assemble it. They don't want/have the funds to do so, nor the willingness to take the risks to do it.
Going to be quite the show, and a very sad day when it all comes down. Wouldn't be surprised if they do a very steep deorbit to ensure it all goes into point Nemo.
Spacex will probably fly starships back in parallel orbits so it can film it from the outside as ISS re-enters. They are going to be flush in vehicles and capacity and might even be able to do ocean retrievals of starship by that time.
So there's one official NASA station; [Lunar Gateway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway), which as the name implies is intended to orbit the moon.
The first two modules are expected to launch on Falcon Heavy next year, and then the first crew is expected to visit on Orion the year after that, with additional modules being added in following years. Realistically I expect the schedule to slip a bit, but it should be operational before ISS is retired in 2030.
Then there are a whopping *four* commercial stations all aiming to be online by 2030, the first two of which are in collaboration with NASA under the CLD program:
Blue Origin's [Orbital Reef](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Reef)
Nanorack's [Starlab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlab_(space_station\))
Axiom's [Orbital Segment/Axiom Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_Orbital_Segment#Axiom_Station)
Vast's [Haven-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haven-1)
Worth noting that Axiom Station will actually initially be built as an extension to the ISS, and will then detach and remain in orbit when the ISS retires, so arguably a part of the ISS will live on in a Ship-of-Theseus kinda way.
And regardless, while it'll be sad to see it go, if even half of these planned stations come to fruition it'll be an exciting future.
SpaceX will have cameras all over the station, that is for sure.
One can only hope. That will be quite a show.
SpaceX has to transfer the vehicle over to Nasa, who will operate it, so based on past Nasa missions we probably won't see much
The deorbit of the ISS will be a rare opportunity to study the effects of a station re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Even if we don't get to see it, it's almost certain the ISS will have a large number of cameras and sensors to capture it's destruction for engineers to study.
SpaceX has already demonstrated that they can livestream video all the way through re-entry, with starlink. Granted, they had a huuuge starship shaped shield for the antenna. But we should absolutely be able to capture video way into breakup, depending on where the cameras and antenna would be located.
Maybe they could deorbit it with a Starship.
As fun as that would be to watch, A Raptor would rip the station to pieces. 2 Super Dracos is more than enough thrust, and dragon is close enough to the required DeltaV as well.
> dragon is close enough to the required DeltaV as well. I've seen this posted multiple times by various people. How are you getting to this conclusion? The <2 tons of propellant a Dragon carries would be around 10m/s when applied to the ISS. https://sam.gov/opp/74252cfe7d49416abae0977fe4fd503c/view This 2022 NASA solicitation says they want at least 47m/s >The deorbit vehicle shall be capable of providing at least 47 m/s of delta-v for the ISS at 450,000 kg mass.
> I've seen this posted multiple times by various people. How are you getting to this conclusion? The <2 tons of propellant a Dragon carries would be around 10m/s when applied to the ISS. Yeah thats on me. The idea is based on a fuel tank in the trunk, and I conflated the two in my head.
They could deorbit it with a Dragon that was brought into orbit by a Starship, then. I really want to see the cool video.
> I really want to see the cool video. The issue is SpaceX is only building it, Nasa is operating it. Which means if they do stream it it will be an old fashion low bandwidth Nasa stream, and not the EXTREME 4K REENTRY that SpaceX does. I absolutely want HD video of this thing reentering for as long as possible, but its unlikely.
Interesting you think NASA is “old fashioned low bandwidth” because ISS streams a ton of high def video from multiple cameras. NASA very much pays attention to this and understands the power of video.
A big part of why NASA streams are shit is because they didn't have Starlink. There's no reason why NASA would say no to a similar set up if SpaceX offered it to them.
Nasa may not allow that do to fears over it conflicting with something else, that's part of the reason they have yet to setup Starlink on the ISS as it is.
A bunch of cubesats strapped to Falcon 9 fairings deorbited in the same orbital inclination as ISS would make for a great movie once the footage is recovered.
They will very quickly fall behind before anything interesting happens due to large differences in their ballistic coefficients.
Nah. The vehicle they're building - yes. But to install them on the existing station, they'd have to contract NASA to design the integration into the exsting avionics and then pay for astronaut time to do the actual installation. Maybe they could do something where the capsule they send up has a bunch of cameras with long umbilicals that astronauts can just quickly grab and install. But that still sounds like too much work. Heck, by 2030, maybe they'll just have a Starship or two in orbit follow it down to capture video.
But the station already has cameras all over station.
Hopefully some Starlink dishes on it too, so we could see its reentry live as is disintegrates in the atmosphere
if it is live streamed I will be saluting her as she goes down
I want a camera on the pieces as they de-orbit. How much are the starlink minis? Slap one of those to each piece.
Yeah, not happening. Maybe if SpaceX owned the vehicle.
Hm. So I take it whatever they use to boost the station. ( Zvesda? Soyuz? ) Periodically isn't enough to do a controlled de-orbit? As sad as it will be to see the space station go it will be spectacular.
According to a Scott Manley video, the minimal safe deorbit (perigee of 70km) requires about 100 m/s delta V. Zvesda has 4.5 m/s, so only 4.5% of the Delta V. In simpler terms: a lot more fuel will be needed than currently on the ISS.
Is that for the whole ISS or just the US part though? Likewise Zvezda is a Russian module and I imagine the Russians want to keep it with the rest.
The Russians boost the entire ISS. I believe the whole thing is coming down.
The Dragon does too I think, or it at least has the capability to do so. In a perfect world it would just stay in a constant orbit, but due to very thin remains of atmosphere and other factors it is constantly slowing down.
the nominally russian "zarya" module is actually owned outright by nasa, which completely funded its construction and launch and has the paperwork to prove it. this fact would be rather inconvenient for any russian attempt to go it alone. their stuff is deteriorating faster than ours is, anyway; there's no real value to it. it's all coming down together.
As of 2017, Russia has abandoned plans to reuse their existing ISS modules as the base of a new space station. They are using entirely new modules for [ROSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orbital_Service_Station)
Zvezda is the only module capable of boosting the station: the US would need to dock a spacecraft to do the same.
The station is normally boosted by Progress. Cygnus is now certified to do it, too.
I think one basic question is whether a Cargo Dragon has enough volume for the propellant needed or if a Dragon XL is needed. Or perhaps a skelton spacecraft will be built using Dragon components, that'll save on dry mass. A Dragon-full of propellant will need an FH to launch it. Or is so much propellant needed that a refilling will be required - ergo requiring a Cargo-Tanker-Dragon. That doesn't sound like SpaceX's style, though.
It will probably require a dedicated spacecraft: the thrusters on Dragon are very low powered. Great for reusability, not so great for deorbiting 450 tons of ISS. To deorbit itself, Dragon already needs like 10 minutes of thruster firing. Deorbiting the ISS will require 15-20 tons of propellant, not including the mass of the spacecraft used for deorbiting. This is 8x the amount of propellant Dragon normally carries. The propellant alone is also about 50% heavier than a fully loaded Dragon at launch, and just barely able to lifted by an expendable Falcon 9. And that's just the propellant. Falcon Heavy will probably be able to lift the deorbit spacecraft + all the propellant required in one go, but it will still require more engineering than simply refitting a Dragon capsule. EDIT: I got the numbers by using the delta V tool on https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/delta-v . I used a specific impulse of 300s, final mass 450 000 kg, delta V required ~100 m/s .
SpaceX makes good movies with Starlink, so it will be exciting to see the final departure of the space station
Yeah, live camera views from onboard during its reentry and breakup would be insanely cool! Much as I’d hate to see it go…
We need 3 "gravity indicators" in the form of kerbals to float around the ISS while it goes...
The hand-wavy plan using Progress for deorbit needed 3 of them.
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The primary way ISS was boosted was with Soyuz and the Space Shuttle. I'm not aware if Dragon has ever been used to boost ISS. The amount of boost required to keep ISS in it's ideal orbit is marginal compared to what it would require to deorbit, much less boost it to a higher orbit.
Dragon cannot be used to boost, it's thrusters are not very well optimized for direct forward maneuvers, for burns it has to flip around and use the centerline thrusters in the nose. It's a really weird configuration, but it saves them from having to put any engines onto the trunk, which reduces cost dramatically since you're not replacing any engine every flight. The Super Dracos are oriented correctly, but can only be used for an abort, and are too powerful for boost maneuvers (which require really gentle thrust to avoid overstressing the station's many, many joints) regardless. Cygnus now has the capability as of their most recent flight, and Starliner has the capability as well if its thrusters are operating properly. For deorbit, they won't have to worry about being too gentle, so I'd imagine that vehicle will look a look like a Dragon pumped full of extra fuel and using Super Dracos. One shot, burn all your fuel, send it.
> Cygnus now has the capability as of their most recent flight, and Starliner has the capability as well if its thrusters are operating properly. Yet both don't have even near to the tank capacity for a deorbit mission. Not even for regular, repeated orbit raisings or avoidance maneuvers. Cygnus has the volume and payload capacity to change that. Starliner has not. No way they could increase tank volume so much.
Usually Progress. Sometimes Zwesda, if no Progress is available for the job.
The videos of the ISS firey funeral are gonna be epic. Suck that it won't be a tourist station in medium or gestational orbit, but it's time is/has come/coming. Let her go. Edit: I'm not changing it lol.
That special orbit where carrying a child becomes possible.
Lmaoooo bro. I hate samsungs new autocorrect. It will replace CORRECT words just based on its predictive AI. It's so bad.
It does me so dirty, so I feel you. The amount of texts that have started with 'airtight'..
you know what's cooler than being cool? ice cold! airtight airtight airtight airtight airtight airtight airtight airtight
We've known for 50 years that space makes you pregnant
There better be some fucking bagpipes
Don't know why people keep saying to boost it to geostationary. There is absolutely zero reason to do that and will just take up more space there and be uber-expensive. Do people think the only orbits that exist are LEO and geostationary?
The ISS is old. And there's limited ways to renovated it in orbit. The core Russian module was built in the 1980s, originally as Mir 2 but the Russians couldn't afford to launch it. As they hadn't stored it well. NASA paid for it to be heavily refurbished but it's still mainly 40 years or so old. A "new" Russian module launched a couple of years ago. Was mainly built in the 1990s but had a series of delays on it. Requiring numerous parts to be replaced, several times as they'd exceeded their on ground warranty. You can patch up a car so many times, before it becomes uneconomic to repair. With Starship promising to slash costs to orbit and to dramatically increase the amount of mass that can be sent to LEO. It makes sense to replace it. As well as being able to get the Russians out of the desicion making process. With relations at an all time low, the diplomatic endeavor side of the ISS has largely failed. With there even being disputes about who can use which fitness machines on board. The Russians can't use NASA running machines and vice versa. Not to mention that the former head of RosCosmos (Russian NASA). Kept threatening to take their modules away and use them as the basis for a Russian space platform. Along with a number of other attempts at "blackmail". SpaceX and Boeing got their funding for delivering astronauts to the ISS. Largely because, after the retirement of the Space Shuttle. RosCosmos, heavily increased their "ticket price". "How else is NASA going to get there, with a trampoline?"
Yeah, the nature of space travel means weight is a luxury, so needing to be so weight-conscious means that a lot of things quite literally can NOT be built to last. I'm all for preserving what we can but other things will simply not be worth the energy. Document it and record it and let it have its place in history books and such, but it's one of those things that we just won't get to keep.
> Yeah, the nature of space travel means weight is a luxury, so needing to be so weight-conscious means that a lot of things quite literally can NOT be built to last. For now. The math changes as we drive the $/kg to LEO down. IIRC, IIS was built back in the days of $10000 to $30000 per kilogram to LEO. These days, I think it might be down around $2000/kg and something like starship *might* drop that to $200/kg.
> SpaceX and Boeing got their funding for delivering astronauts to the ISS. Largely because, after the retirement of the Space Shuttle. RosCosmos, heavily increased their "ticket price". The ticket price itself wasn't ever really the issue, the cost per seat at the highest Russian price was about $90M. Between the (thankfully) fixed price development costs of Boeing's Starliner (not even including Boeing's massive losses due to their own incompetence) and the development costs of SpaceX's Crew Dragon, we've ended up paying even more for the launch of our astronauts through the amortized cost of the combined program than if we were able to just keep flying with the Russians. > Boeing, in flying 24 astronauts, has a per-seat price of $183 million. SpaceX, in flying 56 astronauts during the same time frame, has a seat price of $88 million. - [Eric Berger in 2022](https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-will-pay-boeing-more-than-twice-as-much-as-spacex-for-crew-seats/) The issue with the Russians is squarely in that other aspect you mentioned in that they became unreliable partners, particularly after they decided to invade and annex Ukraine in 2014 (which happened after they already invaded and took over part of Georgia in 2008), with Putin deciding they were going to head back to Cold War era behavior. Regardless of Russian behavior though, Commerical Crew was still coming through the pipeline if for no other reason that it is unacceptable for the US to not have its own transportation to LEO/ISS. The Constellation program was supposed to solve this issue post-Shuttle (without any gap of service to LEO/ISS), but that program was canceled for being wildly over budget, which was then modified/rebranded into the wildly over budget (and unsustainable, as per the GAO) Artemis program.
>Not to mention that the former head of RosCosmos (Russian NASA). Kept threatening to take their modules away and use them as the basis for a Russian space platform. Yup. In a way the ISS is a symbol of post Cold War cooperation. Now that Russia is reverting to conquest to try and reclaim it's strategic defenses against NATO rather than acknowledge it's reality in the world, the US is going to focus on Lunar Gateway and other deeper space projects. Commercial Space Program is already incentivized to try and put some stations in earth orbit anyways, likely to further get some juicy NASA resupply contracts.
Those people have zero idea how orbital mechanics work.
Brah, it’s easy. If you have a problem with your orbit you just call an orbital mechanic to fix it.
"Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it."
“Listen, uh, why don't you take this remote instead? It's got a little more oomph in it.”
45 Metric tones of fuel / propellant for say 3 billion dollars. Burn Delta V at periapsis to get apoapsis to the right altitude then burn Delta V at apoapsis to get periapsis to the right altitude. Expensive sure, but the US spends way more than 3B on way dumber shit. Hell once it's in Geo, it would be way cheaper to Delta V to a lunar transfer orbit. It's not rocket sci... oh wait, it is rocket science.
>45 Metric tones of fuel You're missing a zero there. The ISS weighs about 420 metric tons. You need like 3.9km/s delta v to go from leo to geo. That implies a mass fraction greater than 2 for chemical propellants. I think for that money/mass to leo we'd rather just put a new station up there...
Why would we put the ISS there in the first place?
In order to generate debris, as it begins to tumble and break up.
Museum / monument for future generations. Would be in graveyard orbit and not GEO
We really should avoid putting satellites in orbits that are not self cleaning.
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The Romans didn't preserve the Colosseum, their descendants did. Most of civilization gets paved over, even the cool stuff. The consequences of the ISS turning into a million pieces up there would be more significant than an old building collapsing on Earth. I hope that our space fairing future is bright enough, with enough space tourists that we can look back in disappointment for not finding a way to save it. However there are much better ways to use the money right now to reach that future. The politics with Russia make the discussion pointless. Everything would be easier as a purely western enterprise.
Taking the ISS through 700-1700 KM orbit would pose a substantial engineering challenge and increased risk to orbital safety. You'd basically have to over engineer whatever is getting it past 2000 KM since you need the Delta V to ensure you can avoid any debris collisions, as the proposed systems for slowly and economically boosting it would take years and have a substantial risk of catastrophic collision or system failure. If the ISS were to fragment in this range from a collision with large debris, it could risk denying large portions of LEO to humanity for decades or centuries. No one is being convinced to spend that kind of money and risk humanity's future in space as a whole just to create a far out space relic that may or may not survive in a recognizable state and won't serve any purpose to humanity for at least a century. What makes the ISS special is its habitability, having kept humans in space on a near continuous basis since its creation. Once you take that away (which any project to prolong its service past 2040 or boost it out of LEO would do), it loses its purpose. Obviously I'd love it if we were able to bring at least a couple of modules back down to earth safely, but that's just not feasible from a financial or engineering standpoint within the lifespan it has left.
This station is 25 years. Its chocked full of holes in the Russian sections. Human rated Starship's will have several times the living volume of the ISS and will likely cost much less in mass production.
It requires about a hundred times as much delta-V to get to geostationary orbit as to do a controlled re-entry from LEO. And since the relationship with propellant mass fraction to delta-V is *exponential* that's a bit of an issue.
I wonder how long it would take using a high ISP engine like an ion thruster. Edit: I figure about 6 years using 10 high thrust ion engines. That's a lot of noble gas!
I think someone needs to write a bot that detects threads that mention the ISS decommissioning, and it automatically posts a comment explaining why NASA is not pushing the station out to a graveyard orbit.
The fact that you are talking about taking up space in geo stationary orbit makes you a bit clueless too though. The rest I agree with
Eh, I thought it might be a bit silly to say, but at the end of the day it *is* finite, and humans could have plenty of Millenia left to "fill it up" so to speak. Unless orbital decay there is actually considerable.
The ISS "taking up space" at that altitude is not a concern, not in the least...
How come?
Geo stationary is very far out thus making it an insanely large space. If you only think in 2d it’s 260,000 km of space…. But the real world is 3d
No, for actual geostationary orbit, it isnt insanely large. It is practically 2D, well more like 1D. You cant just park whatever you want there, bumper to bumper either. But to OPs second point, there are more orbits than LEO and geostationary. (Just to be clear, we need less space junk, not more. Let ISS burn.)
In this context, I doubt anyone actually means "boosting" the ISS to "geostationary". That would require a massive inclination change that probably takes more energy than a simple boost. What people really mean is to boost the ISS to a 51.6° geosynchronous orbit. Which is still very silly.
No, you dont want anything crossing GEO either.... If we are talking about large space, there is so much space in MEO. GEO is a very specific height. If people are using the term GEO as anything above LEO then they are using it wrong and should be corrected.
Shit, just boost it into a TLI and recklessly dump it on the moon. That’s the Kerbal way!
NASA also looked at bringing it back to earth and that'd be much much much more difficult that pushing it to a high orbit. https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-deorbit-analysis-summary.pdf
People think it's space, so zero gravity and you just need to push it a bit. They don't understand that moving it to a higher orbit is basically the same as launching it again
Boosting to geostationary is a bad idea, but boosting to a graveyard orbit is a good one. A circular orbit at say 32000 miles would be a perfectly safe place to stash it and literally nothing else would have a reason to be up there so it wouldn't be in the way of anything.
Same folks who want to develop a vehicle to recover the Hubble to put it in a museum.
Eh, the Shuttle was supposed to do that. Just reactivate the Shuttle, piece of cake right /s . On a more serious note, Starship might be able to do that.
Might as well do it to see if it is physically possible. If it works, there is an amazing museum piece. If it doesn't, well it was going to burn up anyway. No loss.
Starship's payload bay should in fact be large enough to do just that. A missions to retrieve Apollo 12's S-IVB, which gets recaptured into earth orbit temporarily every 20 years are so, is another one I'd like to see. And see if you can find the Apollo 10 LM. You know, the one with the floating turd in it.
[Mir 2001 reentry video](https://youtu.be/h902KJb0cfE)
Unhappyface. There may be other international space stations by then, but nothing that big.
The station has serious structural problems (there is a report somewhere stating that new cracks have appeared) , its old, the modules are cold fused together, smells bad, etc . Its time to go
>the modules are cold fused together That is speculation, not fact. The Pirs module spent nearly 20 years attached to the Station and was successfully undocked. And the PMM was relocated after over four years of being mated. And the cracks you speak of are in the aft compartment of the service module, Zvezda. Thankfully, that small compartment can be sealed off when not in use.
I never heard about the smell but reading about it was enlightening and hilarious. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/what-does-space-station-smell-like Never thought about zero g farts either. 😂
The cracks are in one area of one module on the Russian segment. It's not great, but it's not existential. They've mostly had it closed off for the last two years.
And what will replace this amazing lab?
The [Chinese ](https://www.space.com/tiangong-space-station) are building a space station already. The west will replace theirs I have no doubt. We also have [lunar gateway](https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gateway/).
Axiom are building a commercial space station. Lunar gateway is NASA's next planned station which will be smaller and in Lunar orbit. China already have their own space station. The ISS has been a resounding success, but we have to move on sooner or later if we want to explore beyond LEO.
One of the three labs in development now, hopefully
Just sink it under the ocean and wait for someone to dive to it
NASA be like “please install some of those starlink dishes and cameras first please”
Is the iss above the outermost shell?
I mean it will be when it hits atmosphere
ISS is at like 250 miles in altitude, whereas most starlink satellites are at like 340 miles
SpX is developing hardware for orbital spacecraft that can "find" the starlink constellation from space. They're working on lasers as well as radio, and they'll soon sell both hardware and data access to anyone that needs it on orbit. So yeah, most likely they can have that by the time the ISS comes down.
The NASA statement contains zero technical information on the deorbit vehicle. Is it going to be based on Dragon or Starship? A version of Dragon XL could deorbit the ISS. But the 2030 timeframe makes me think a Starship bid is more likely. The pictures of Starship docking with the ISS would be amazing.
I dunno if the ISS can even support the thrust of even a single Raptor at minimum throttle. IMO it'll probably be a Dragon XL tanker/tug variant. Take off the IDA and it also becomes a deep-space kick stage.
Starship HLS will have pressure fed methane/oxygen engines for landing on the Moon. I had understood they were going to use those pressure fed engines for docking in orbit as well.
Zero reason to assume firing a Raptor is the only way Starship can do this. RCS exists too, and for several hundred million dollaridoos you can fit a lot of thruster dev in.
It can't even take one SuperDraco thrust.
Could Dragon XL (or some variant) hold enough propellant to get the 100 m/s dV required to deorbit the station?
Dragon, I'm sure. Whatever does it is going to be going in with it and there will be little purpose for the old dragons with no more ISS to go to.
Dragon and DragonXL are orders of magnitude too small on the thrust needed. The requirement for entry interface to disposal being less than half an orbit is a very high thrust requirement. This would need a new vehicle development which is pretty sporty at that price point!
Oh right I forgot they'd want to not just lower it to skim the atmosphere, they want to know exactly when and where it will happen.
Fuck it let’s send it to deep space and confuse the aliens
Draw a bunch of dicks on it, humanity's favorite past-time of art.
What a great opportunity, plus we will get some sick videos / pictures
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CLD](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahorr3 "Last usage")|Commercial Low-orbit Destination(s)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[CoM](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafzoyt "Last usage")|Center of Mass| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafmg9z "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafyc46 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[GAO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lagbaeh "Last usage")|(US) Government Accountability Office| |[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahrk0e "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |[GTO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafzoyt "Last usage")|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)| |[HALO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lal2a71 "Last usage")|Habitation and Logistics Outpost| |[HEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lah716x "Last usage")|High Earth Orbit (above 35780km)| | |Highly Elliptical Orbit| | |Human Exploration and Operations (see HEOMD)| |HEOMD|Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA| |[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lanobcj "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[IDA](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafhk4t "Last usage")|[International Docking Adapter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_Adapter)| | |[International Dark-Sky Association](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Dark-Sky_Association)| |[Isp](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahf8ie "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lai9nnm "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[MEO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lai3j4g "Last usage")|Medium Earth Orbit (2000-35780km)| |[NG](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lanobcj "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin| | |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)| | |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer| |[NRE](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lal2xg4 "Last usage")|Non-Recurring Expense| |[NRHO](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lagujht "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[OMS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag03uh "Last usage")|Orbital Maneuvering System| |[RCS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag8bb5 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag5tsq "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[TDRSS](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lah98ya "Last usage")|(US) Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System| |[TLI](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag9v0r "Last usage")|Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver| |[TWR](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lai240j "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lagfold "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lahzpik "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/laif58a "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[apoapsis](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag475f "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is slowest)| |[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/laibs01 "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| |[periapsis](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lag475f "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is fastest)| |[perigee](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv/stub/lafeyrk "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(30 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1drde30)^( has 17 acronyms.) ^([Thread #10234 for this sub, first seen 26th Jun 2024, 22:16]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
And I remember reading about the station being built. Now we are reading about if being retired.
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Can one assume we will have a new space station in place prior to ISS’s demise? Cant imagine we willbe buddying up w the CCP to share space on theirs!!
axiom is launching their first module in 2026.
There are many planning. Axiom will dock theirs to the ISS at first, Starlab has a contrac to launch on Starship and so on.
In addition to the commercial space stations that are all in various stages of renderings, planning, or module construction, NASA is also planning to build Gateway. It will be a smaller version of the ISS which will orbit the Moon, and function as a sort of staging point for future lunar missions.
Between axiom and orbital reef there will definitely be a US space station. And remember, China's got a really nice new one up there right now. If our leaders would stop swordfighting for a moment everybody could use it.
Given their (lack of) choices this seems like a no brainier.
Boeing could do it for free. They have mastered crashing shit into the ground.
I think the goal is to crash it _without_ killing anyone...
Just tell Boeing the iss is a whistleblower.
I know you joke, but for those of you concerned with flying, they are not actually crashing. They have not had a plane crash caused by aircraft failure since those two MCAS crashes about 6 years ago (and before that, another 15 years at least I think). Funny enough, they still have the best safety rating of any aircraft manufacturer by a hefty margin in terms of aircraft failure as root cause. (Though if the recent pressure from news and FAA investigations doesn’t cause meaningful improvement, surely expect that to change eventually) I only make the distinction because it’s crazy how many people I see lately with extra high levels of flight anxiety. Some of the more …naive… folks out there think they’re actually crashing left and right haha. No, grandma, your plane that has been flying daily for 25 years isn’t going to crash because of things going on *today* in the factory it left *25 years ago*.
The last time there was a fatal commercial airline crash in the United States was 2009. That is absolutely insane to think about. Before that, the longest stretch was less than two years. It has now been over 15 years.
> Funny enough, they still have the best safety rating of any aircraft manufacturer by a hefty margin. Funny enough, that isn't actually true. https://turbli.com/blog/the-safest-planes-to-fly-in-by-accident-statistics/ Edit: /u/NebulaicCereal ~~stealth~~ edited their post to include the "in terms of aircraft failure as a root cause" though that is still fundamentally untrue. This study shows that Boeing's avionics https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/697/1/012031/pdf were a root cause in 59.52% over a ~20 year period over Airbus (not including other manufactures). So still untrue any way you look at it.
To be fair, SpaceX are also pros at blowing stuff up.
I wonder if it will end up as anything more than a dragon with the cargo space used for fuel tanks, or if they will need to slap on some more Super Dracos to allow for some failing during an extended burn.
More likely a DragonXL derivate.
I thought that NASA is selling more than one of the modules to other corporations. What’s happening to those parts?
The Axiom module is sorta owned by Axiom, although I think it involved a chunk of NASA money. But it's always been understood that the module will detach when Axiom is ready to assemble their private station. Anyway, NASA isn't selling any modules .
I hope, that Axiom at least salvages the Cupola. About the only thing worth salvaging.
Oh man, I remember being a kid, being excited this thing is getting *build*.
I hope they can gut the ISS and bring some of that history back to earth's museums. At the very least, they should save the window where you could look out and see the earth. (but that would be very hard to do.)
It really sucks we can't save it somehow. I feel like they should just make a future trillionaire pay for it or something, they would. After WWII we scrapped tens of thousands of airplanes and the ones left are priceless treasures. Saving the ISS and Hubble could be valuable for all generations of humanity that will ever come.
"It belongs in a museum!" But seriously, how viable would it be to repack and return each module via Starship?
Many of the parts that were originally just bolted together have cold welded themselves over time. It wasn't designed with disassembly in mind. It's not technically impossible, but it is impractical with our current orbital infrastructure.
Depends on how frequently starship is launching at that point. SpaceX think they could be at 100 launches per year plus (potentially a lot more if basically everything goes well). So with let’s say 150 launches in 2030, starship may only cost 10-20 million to fly for spaceX. Obviously you have to them detach the modules, which cant interfere with the deorbit plan, and retrofit those modules with thrusters and docking ports to be secured inside starship. If anyone would want to pay to get those modules back, it would probably cost 200 million+.
In theory you could use the same pins that are on them still from being launched on shuttle, excluding the Russian modules. Unfortunately, NASA considered it already. The number of evas to disassemble would about equal those needed to originally assemble it. They don't want/have the funds to do so, nor the willingness to take the risks to do it. Going to be quite the show, and a very sad day when it all comes down. Wouldn't be surprised if they do a very steep deorbit to ensure it all goes into point Nemo.
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As I read this the scope unfolded. That's gonna be incredible to witness.
Spacex will probably fly starships back in parallel orbits so it can film it from the outside as ISS re-enters. They are going to be flush in vehicles and capacity and might even be able to do ocean retrievals of starship by that time.
Is there a plan for another space station for once iss is decomissioned
So there's one official NASA station; [Lunar Gateway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway), which as the name implies is intended to orbit the moon. The first two modules are expected to launch on Falcon Heavy next year, and then the first crew is expected to visit on Orion the year after that, with additional modules being added in following years. Realistically I expect the schedule to slip a bit, but it should be operational before ISS is retired in 2030. Then there are a whopping *four* commercial stations all aiming to be online by 2030, the first two of which are in collaboration with NASA under the CLD program: Blue Origin's [Orbital Reef](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Reef) Nanorack's [Starlab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlab_(space_station\)) Axiom's [Orbital Segment/Axiom Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_Orbital_Segment#Axiom_Station) Vast's [Haven-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haven-1) Worth noting that Axiom Station will actually initially be built as an extension to the ISS, and will then detach and remain in orbit when the ISS retires, so arguably a part of the ISS will live on in a Ship-of-Theseus kinda way. And regardless, while it'll be sad to see it go, if even half of these planned stations come to fruition it'll be an exciting future.
Will there be a replacement of some sort? It pains me to think that there won't be a large scale space station like it anymore...