In October 2000, a Soyuz rocket delivered the first expedition to the International Space Station, where the laboratory began to take up permanent residence. Humans have had a place in space ever since. NASA is currently preparing for humanity’s next presence in space, with plans to deorbit the International Space Station in 2031.
“Maintenance on the space station is constant. We send astronauts out on spacewalks on a regular basis, and that’s exactly what they do,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “Let’s say a commercial station wasn’t ready. Technically we could keep the space station operational, but the idea was to keep it flying until 2030 and deorbit it in 2031.”
Once the International Space Station leaves orbit, it will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. Most of it will burn up, but some will survive the heat of re-entry.
“It’s the size of a football stadium,” Nelson said. “It needs to be buried precisely in the South Pacific Graveyard.”
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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is pictured above a photo of the International Space Station. (Getty Images)
It is the largest structure ever constructed in space. In the 1990s, Russia was involved in choosing the ISS’s orbit.
“We’ve been developing the deorbiter for five or six years now. You never know what Putin’s going to do. What’s going to happen to our relationship? Can we continue to rely on our space station partners to help us land? So we’re not taking any chances,” Nelson said.
NASA currently partners with private companies in the United States and allied countries around the world.
“There are limitations to staying on a space station that’s run by multiple governments,” said Jeffrey Manber, president of the International Space Station for Voyager Space.
Voyager and its international partners plan to launch STAR Labs into a lower orbit.
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The company claims this is more efficient and cost-effective than the agreement the United States and Russia reached in the 1990s.
“If it’s for commercial purposes, there’s no need to get political like we did 30 years ago when we invited the Russians,” Manber said.
Like the ISS, Voyager’s STAR Lab will be an international hub, with the company partnering with companies around the world.
A view of the International Space Station taken by the crew of the Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft after undocking from the station on March 30, 2022. (Roscosmos State Space Corporation, via The Associated Press, File)
“We have Airbus represented in Europe, Mitsubishi Corporation represented in Japan, and MDA in Canada announced they’ll be building the robotic arm,” Manber said, “and of course we have support from NASA. So we’re really excited to be putting this together into something truly international.”
NASA believes the shift to commercial partnerships also benefits national security.
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“You see Russia invading Ukraine and then all of a sudden a lot of the free world is separating itself from Russia. And what’s interesting is that what’s still working in the Russian-U.S. relationship is cooperation that goes beyond just operating and maintaining and launching astronauts together. It’s a stable, professional relationship,” Nelson said.
After a series of delays, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft lifted off at 10:52 a.m. on June 5, 2024 from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Command Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. (Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Apart from the International Space Station, the only structure in orbit that houses astronauts is the Chinese space station. Beijing has been barred from the ISS, largely due to US concerns that the Chinese military has control over its space program. Russia plans to launch an orbital service station in 2027. India also hopes to have its own station in the near future. The US believes that moving away from government control in space would benefit life on Earth.
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“When you circle the Earth every 90 minutes, you don’t see religious divisions on the planet. You don’t see racial divisions. You don’t see political divisions,” Nelson said. “All you see is our home, the Earth. You see that we are all residents of planet Earth. That’s the unifying factor.”
