International Space Station: NASA should rethink its deorbit | EUROtoday

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The destiny of the International Space Station (the ISS) may change: on February 4, the Science, Space and Technology Committee of the US House of Representatives authorized with a unanimous vote (37-0) the “NASA Reauthorization Act of 2026”, a invoice that features an surprising however essential modification for the Station: the area company should formally rethink the plan to deorbit it by 2031.

Today, in truth, it’s anticipated that the outpost, whose first module was launched in 1998 and which has been completely inhabited by not less than two astronauts since November 2000, will probably be decommissioned inside 5 years, with a posh operation that can finish with a dive (of the elements not disintegrating within the environment) into the Pacific Ocean.

Presented by George Whitesides (Democratic consultant of California) and Nick Begich (Republican of Alaska), the modification doesn’t block the decommissioning of the ISS, however requires NASA to conduct an intensive examination of the alternate options earlier than continuing. As Whitesides defined, what known as for is “an analysis of the costs and risks of keeping the ISS in orbit.” The modification “does not mandate the transfer of, nor authorize financing or execution of, any plan.” The goal is for NASA to judge whether or not it’s technically and economically possible to “park” the Station in a better and safer orbit.

The numbers of the dilemma

Joint program of the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, a robust image of peaceable collaboration and an orbiting laboratory for a whole bunch of experiments, the ISS is probably the most spectacular structure ever in-built area. It has been known as “the most expensive single object ever built”, with whole financing estimated at between 100 and 150 billion {dollars}. Its working prices are equally important: NASA funds the Station with 3-4 billion {dollars} a yr, a good portion of the company’s finances, which by 2026 will probably be round 25 billion (or greater than 27 when you add the allocations from the Big Beautiful Bill Act, 10 billion unfold over the subsequent six years). It is not any coincidence that, in March 2025, a proposal from Donald Trump aimed toward substantial cuts to this system and a progressive discount of actions in orbit. The proposal, nonetheless, was not authorized by the House and Senate.

In June 2024, for the managed deorbit, SpaceX was awarded an $843 million contract to develop the US Deorbit Vehicle (or Usdv), the automobile designed to push the Station into the Earth’s environment to make it fall in a managed method. The determine solely covers the event of the automobile. The then NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, later declared that the overall price of the operation may attain 1.5 billion, together with launch and integration.