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posted by mrpg on Friday January 12 2018, @05:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the backups-in-space dept.

Although Russia has plans to detach some of its modules from the International Space Station (ISS) in order to form the basis of a new space station, the majority of the ISS may be deorbited as soon as 2024 or 2028:

Over the course of six missions, the British-born Nasa astronaut has spent more than a year in space. Foale has flown in the Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz, lived on the Mir space station and commanded the International Space Station (ISS). He’s carried out four space walks, totalling almost 23 hours outside in both Russian and American spacesuits. These included an epic eight-hour spacewalk to upgrade the computer on the Hubble Space Telescope.

[...] A joint enterprise between the US, Russia, the European Space Agency (Esa), Japan and Canada, the ISS has now been continuously occupied since 2000. And, over that time, has increasingly come to justify its $100bn (£75bn) cost. [...] But the station's days are numbered. Funding by the various space agencies involved is only agreed until 2024. This means in just six years' time, the most expensive structure ever built will be pushed out of orbit by a Progress spacecraft to disintegrate over the Pacific. And the countdown clock is ticking. "Year by year, Russia is launching the fuel to fill up the tanks of the ISS service module to enable the space station to be deorbited," says Foale. "That's the current plan – I think it's a bad plan, a massive waste of a fantastic resource."

[...] Since leaving Nasa, Foale has been working in the private sector on new aviation technologies and believes commercial operators could step-in to secure the future of the ISS. "I'm hoping that commercial space can come up with a business plan that allows part of the ISS to be maintained in space, without sinking it into the Pacific Ocean," he says. "You have to come up with innovative ways of keeping it in space." The ISS already supports some commercial operations. A private company, NanoRacks, operates experiments in equipment racks on the station for private clients. The station is increasingly also being used to launch small satellites into orbit, carried up in commercial spacecraft such as SpaceX's Dragon robotic supply ship. The Russian space agency takes tourists to the station and has even suggested it might build a hotel module.

[...] In the meantime, Foale is formulating his campaign to save the ISS and says he plans to launch websites to gather support to help save the space station. He says he intends to keep pressure on the space agencies to continue to fund the programme. "Every engineer, manager, astronaut or cosmonaut who's worked on the ISS, we all think the space station is such an achievement on behalf of humanity that it should continue," he says. "I'm still giving Nasa a chance to tell me how they're going to do it."

But, unless the private sector steps in, Foale fears that in 2024 the space agencies – and the politicians that fund them – will end up destroying one of the world's greatest engineering accomplishments, not to mention a massive economic investment by millions of taxpayers around the world.

Save it, send it to the Moon, or burn it?


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  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday January 12 2018, @06:18PM (3 children)

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday January 12 2018, @06:18PM (#621473)

    I don't think you realize just how low of an orbit ISS occupies. Getting the whole thing to the moon would take dozens of launches for just the propellant.

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday January 12 2018, @07:36PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday January 12 2018, @07:36PM (#621505)

    But raising it a few hundred km would reduce the orbital decay to the point where an ion-engine fed by plasma made from non-recyclable stuff would keep it up forever (ish).

    It's too low because of the Space Shuttle, and it's on a weird orbit because of Baikonour. One is gone, the other should not be a requirement by 2028.

    "Just" push it up continuously.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:15AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Sunday January 14 2018, @01:15AM (#622032) Journal

    This is where something like the BFR would come in handy. Greater payload than SLS Block 2 or Saturn V even in fully reusable mode, designed for in-orbit refueling and complete reusability. Expected to be cheaper than a Falcon 9 launch (every Falcon 9 chucks the second stage into the ocean).

    BFR might fly by 2024, certainly by 2028.

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    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:27PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:27PM (#624410)

      Then we wouldn't need to save the ISS. We could simply launch a new (bigger) space station with a single BFR.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh