So the falling debris poses very little danger to humans. Situated between New Zealand and South America, it is 2,688 kilometres from the nearest land. It will be brought down in place known as Point Nemo, or the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility. So the ISS will join a host of other retired space hardware in a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean. If it was hit by a piece of space junk it would create a shower of debris that would threaten all of our satellite infrastructure in low-Earth orbit. The ISS is the biggest thing orbiting the Earth after the Moon. Leaving it in space would pose a significant danger. Then comes the tricky part: what to do with it. It will be a place to make Hollywood blockbusters in weightlessness, with Tom Cruise widely reported to be shooting a film there. December 2024 should see the launch of a six-metre-wide film studio called Space Entertainment Enterprise-1 (SEE-1). The rest of the 2020s will see the increasing commercialisation of the ISS, with habitable modules available for private space travellers to stay in. The last few years have seen a growing collaboration between publicly funded space agencies like NASA and privately owned businesses like Elon Musk’s SpaceX. With eight years left before the last crew leaves, there will now be a shift in emphasis.
NASA INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SERIES
There has also been a series of air leaks in the crew’s living quarters. Cracks have started to appear in the Zarya cargo module. In September last year Russia warned that at least 80 per cent of their section of the ISS has in-flight systems that are passed their expiry date. Yet, as with everything in life, nothing can last forever. She completed three spacewalks, including the first all-female spacewalk alongside ISS crew member Christina Koch. NASA added that it would encourage and incentivize commercial companies that overtake space duties in 2031 to reach out to students and develop the next generation of space pioneers.Astronaut Jessica Meir spent 204 days in space from 25 September 2019 to 17 April 2020. In its announcement, NASA highlighted the Biden administration's commitment to keeping the station open for the next decade, writing that the station is "busier than ever" with crews onboard "advancing the technologies and procedures that will be necessary to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon and the first humans to Mars." The ISS has orbited 227 nautical miles above Earth during its more than two decades in space. The station, which launched in 1998, has hosted astronauts from 19 countries in their scientific ventures. A chart showing the descending altitudes planned for the International Space Station as it approaches reentry, expected in 2031. Thee Russian Progress spacecraft will be required to pull it out of orbit. Mission control will use a series maneuvers to lower the altitude of of the station's orbit and line it up for its descent, before it finally comes down at Point Nemo in January 2031. When the program has reached the end of its lifespan, NASA intends to "de-orbit" the ISS over an uninhabited part of the South Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo. It expects several NASA crewmembers at a time to work aboard commercial space stations by the early 2030s, conducting scientific and medical research in microgravity. NASA's aim is to use the commercial ventures to purchase goods and services that the federal space program needs, instead of doing it all on their own. "We look forward to sharing our lessons learned and operations experience with the private sector to help them develop safe, reliable, and cost-effective destinations in space." "The private sector is technically and financially capable of developing and operating commercial low-Earth orbit destinations, with NASA's assistance," he said.
Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at NASA Headquarters, said in a press release that the private sector will be taking the lead on the development of future space station projects and that NASA will help ensure a smooth transition. NASA says it plans to retire the International Space Station in 2031 by crashing it into an uninhabited stretch of the Pacific Ocean.
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