Scrapping the International Space Station could cost NASA $1 billion

A International Space Station It has hosted astronauts throughout its 23 years of existence, and is only now beginning to experience structural problems, cracks and leaks. With this, the Nasa is discussing how best to dispose of the ISS in the early 2030s – which is expected to cost the space agency more than $1 billion.

As highlighted by the portal Futurism, there are two options for taking the ISS out of orbit. Engineers could simply cause the station to ‘fall’ uncontrollably towards Earth’s atmosphere, which would cause the station to explode en route. The second option is to orchestrate a more careful descent, using a special spacecraft that would allow pointing the right direction for the ISS’s fall.

In the first case, there is a risk that, even with the explosion in space, giant pieces of the space station will reach Earth – including populated areas. Even though NASA has a mechanism to minimize the amount of debris that could fall to Earth, ideally, choosing the falling option with direction control is ideal.

However, to ensure the controlled fall, NASA will have to develop and build a custom vehicle that is powerful enough to leave orbit and also accompany the station during its descent.

Even if the US agency – surprisingly – asked Russia for help to use the Progress vehicles that the country has, it would still be a challenge.

For now, the only certainty is that the ISS will disappear in the coming years, coming to an end with a bang, a glittering inferno in the sky, marking the bittersweet end of decades of international cooperation and scientific advances.