NASA states its plan to retire the Internation Space Station, as per a recently released report.
The space agency will “deorbit” the ISS space station in the year 2031. At the end of its tenure in space, the ISS will be sent crashing down into the Spacecraft Cemetary, an area of the Pacific ocean known as Point Nemo. The ISS operators will perform a ‘re-entry burn‘, which will ensure its safe atmospheric entry.
Image Acquired From Space.com
The space station has been active with a rotating crew from multiple nations. It will enter the third and final decade of its operation. By the end of its lifetime, there will be parts that can’t be fixed or replaced in space. In a press release Robyn Gatens, director of the International Space Station at NASA Headquarters said, “This third decade is one of results.”
“Building on our successful global partnership to verify exploration and human research technologies to support deep space exploration,” he added. “We look forward to maximizing these returns from the space station through 2030 while planning for transition to commercial space destinations that will follow.”
Point Nemo is Latin for ‘No One, known for its controlled re-entries of space crafts located 2,000 miles north of Antarctica. Owing to its distance from land, it has since become a common graveyard for space junk having collected decommissioned satellites, space stations and spacecraft for many years.
According to NBC News, “Most objects will burn up as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere, but some fragments can survive. With its location far away from any landmasses, the area is considered a relatively safe place for falling space debris.”
