ISS deorbit — what happens after 2030

The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. No other human structure has been lived in continuously for a quarter of a century — let alone one hurtling through the vacuum at twenty-eight thousand kilometres an hour. But nothing in low Earth orbit lasts for ever, and the Station’s time is running out.

Why it cannot stay up

The Station orbits roughly four hundred kilometres above the surface. At that altitude there is still a whisper of atmosphere — not much, but enough to drag on the solar panels and trusses and slow the whole structure down, fraction by fraction, orbit by orbit. Left alone, it would spiral lower over months and eventually tumble into an uncontrolled re-entry.

To prevent that, rockets docked to the Station periodically fire their engines to push it back up. This is called a reboost. It works, but the Station’s aluminium structure is ageing. Micrometeorite impacts, thermal cycling — expanding in sunlight, contracting in shadow, sixteen times a day for twenty-five years — and simple metal fatigue all take their toll. At some point the cost and risk of keeping it habitable will outweigh what it returns.

The current plan

NASA has set the end of normal operations for 2030, with a controlled deorbit nominally targeted for early 2031. The Station will not simply be abandoned: a dedicated deorbit vehicle — at the time of writing, being built by SpaceX under a NASA contract — will attach to the Station and fire a long, sustained burn to lower the orbit deliberately.

The goal is a controlled re-entry over the South Pacific, aimed at the region around Point Nemo — the spot in the ocean furthest from any land. Much of the Station will burn up on the way down, but surviving fragments (the denser structural nodes, for instance) will fall into open water.

What replaces it

The plan is not to leave low Earth orbit empty. Several commercial space stations are in development — Axiom Station, Orbital Reef (Blue Origin and Sierra Space), and Starlab (Voyager Space and Airbus) among them. The idea is that a commercially operated laboratory in orbit takes over the research role while NASA focuses on deeper-space programmes.

Whether those stations are ready and crewed by the time the ISS comes down is one of the open questions of the decade.

What it means for this site

We track the ISS because it is there, right now, crossing your sky tonight. That will not be the case for ever — and that is part of what makes catching a visible pass worth the effort. While the Station still flies, you can watch it live, read about who is aboard, and learn how the tracking works.