The extended period of time to prepare the ISS for it's final deorbit shows how complex a process this will be. As such, NASA's choice of SpaceX for the deorbit vehicle is a prudent decision.
Only the cupola? That can fit in a stripped Dragon. We are talking about some 60M USD for that, mind you. Very expensive memento. Maybe the piece of the wall where astronauts signed when visiting the ISS...
Oh you can bet $$$ they'll be bringing back quite a few mementos and souvenirs. They'll have to strip certain things out they can't risk *not* burning up and getting back into water due to hazmat issues, so they'll have stuff coming back as it is. Not to mention, what will the USSR- excuse me, Russia feel like they're entitled to bring back?
I agree if Starship is flying by time this is up, and it has been landing safely a few times, id also vote to see if they can bring a handful of pieces home, the cupola and some interior panels or other significant parts would be awesome
Ellie, I feel that you are the best choice to research why Viper was actually canceled. How NASA politics works, why someone internally would want it canceled or why Congress does what it does. Your ability to find the right guests to discuss non-science aspects of space and related projects is desperately needed here. Giving the public an idea of how it all works and why this stuff happens might change something. Please.
Personally I would prefer to push it into a Luna orbit using Dragon initially but completing with ION thrusters over a longer period. More ISP allowing it to arrive in orbit as a form of Lifeboat. I know the technology is aging but if the vessel can remain pressurized avionics can be up- graded
Bring it down safely as planned. Don't spend money on needless ventures with space junk. Recognize and remember those who operated it in space and on the ground.
Great Video ! The deorbit craft should be the SpaceX Cargo Dragon ! The craft will have extra fuel/propellant instead of cargo and for more thrust they will add more thruster engines. This Cargo Dragon will be the First Space Tug and its weight/mass will only be limited by the payload the booster rocket can launch to the ISS ! Since the Space Tug may be in orbit for a couple of years the Solar Panels may be needed ! If the Space Tug can not be launched with enough fuel to deorbit the ISS then the ability to refuel the Space Tug should be included ! The SpaceX Dragon Space Tug can in the future can be used to raise the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ! tjl
What about using good old capitalism? Put it up at auction for lease with proceeds to be split up to member countries by the percentage of investment. Require the purchaser to guarantee reboosts to keep ISS in orbit for lease term.
The ISS is a money pit, not a cash cow. Its a science lab, there's no return on investment for that. If you want space tourism its much better to build a purpose built habitat.
I thought of this, but they may have already considered this, and figure it's likely that it will become and emergency situation. Better to sell it to someone, or a group of countries or companies, making it their responsibility. The money from the sale could be used to de-orbit the ISS in the event that the buyer can not handle the ISS responsibly (i.e. they cannot or choose not to fulfill their contractual obligations).
I think that SpaceX should have been in control of everything related to space for a long time, and I hope that from now on they understand this definitively, because Elon Musk knows how to manage this activity and mission, he is the literal commander of Starfleet, and I hope that he brings this space station to be replaced perhaps by another one suitable for the current resources, and that the astronauts are finally brought in total safety.Thank you very much Ellie, your approach to these topics is great. SpaceX is the path to the future of Star Trek, and so is your research.👏👏💝🌹💥🚀🌟
I wonder if the solar arrays and truss structure can be repurposed to a commercial station. I can see why a leaky and failing set of modules need to be replaced. I would hope the tons of framework can be repurposed. It costs a lot to ship that kind of structure up there.
That new propulsion module could be very useful if SpaceX for whatever reason wants to send the Dragon capsule to the Moon and back. Delta-v capability should be enough to go to low lunar orbit and get out of it again, a capability that Orion lacks which is the reason for the strange orbit NASA is going to use for Gateway.
If nothing else works; Dragon was built for propulsiv landing and could surely be used for a Moon mission. Only problem is that Dragon can not stay in space as long as Orion can. 🚀🏴☠️🎸
@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx It is consumables limited since it carries everything in the capsule itself. But if they build a proper service section now anyway they might as well make it possible for it to carry consumables. If that is what they plan. But I assume their first priority is to make Starship able to do everything so who knows.
@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx I can't see them trying to use Dragon as a lunar lander. It's got no landing legs, for one thing. It probably doesn't carry enough fuel to land, take off, and then do whatever else it needs to in order to get people to safety off the moon. I guess they could use a few of them as emergency escape ships for the Moon base though. They'd have to be "refurbished" and re-fueled after landing on the Moon, and then they could be put into "escape silos" at various places around the base. (I would suggest they put six of them in place, so they can take 36 people off the Moon in some emergency . . . though that may not be nearly enough, considering the high probability that multiple Starships will eventually be taking dozens of people to the moon, and returning a similar number to Earth, each time they land on the Moon, and that may occur on a monthly basis. That likely means there will be more than a hundred occupants in the Moon base at any one time, so there should be enough "escape capacity" for much more than just 36 people to launch away from the Moon base in several "life-boat" spacecraft.)
Yes, the end of the space shuttle was sad for me. I’m having grown up in central Florida. I think I watched every launch personally. But what was even sad or was the nine years between the last space shuttle and the first SpaceX dragon mission. Hopefully after the end of the space station, we don’t have to wait almost an entire entire decade for the next evolution in low earth orbit habitation. 😊
The way things are going we will have a space station under construction before the ISS de-orbits (if that does indeed happen). I believe there are several companies planning to build space stations already, and with the Starship flying missions regularly, like it probably will next year, delivering satellites into orbit, I have no doubt someone will set up a contract to get SpaceX to deliver the first parts of a space station into orbit in 2026 or 2027. Don't forget that SpaceX will have dozens of Starships taking payloads into orbit by that time, and will quite possibly be flying hundreds of missions into LEO each year long before the ISS is de-orbited.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. Unfortunately de orbit is the practical end for the ISS. Would be funny if after selling NASA the de orbit vehicle Elon were to offer to take it off their hands and do something else with it. What, no idea 🤷♂️ but I’m sure he could think of something. Send it to a Lagrange point for later use? Park it into orbit with the moon or maybe Venus. Wishing you the best.
Great research and reporting! My only concern is to make sure that pieces come off, in deorbiting, in trajectories that rule out land impact, even if most of the ISS does get to an ocean impact. How to preclude atmospheric drag breaking off pieces prematurely?
What would it matter? All the pieces will land in approximately the same area anyway, and if they choose an area just west of Easter Island they don't have to worry about hitting anything or anyone (except maybe a whale or shark or a whale shark).
I look forward to seeing pass over where I live , Spot the station' is a great resource.. It's kind of cool to know when to go out and look for the ISS ..
Although a Lagrange point is a great place, i think fuel would be needed to keep it there. It would take a lot of Delta v too get it there. What would the benefit be? Might it be better to have it as the artimus moon transfer station? The Delta v required would be less and maybe it could be a very slow transition saving some Delta v?
Maybe I misunderstood Lagrange points then, I thought they had equal parts of gravitational pull making them less fuel reliant not more so. Not saying there would be a lot of practicality to putting it there other than as an observation point and a type of museum and possibly a laboratory for zero G rather than micro G.
The station is old and wasn't designed for such trips. It is much much riskier to take it higher where any accident would threaten future missions for a hundred years or more
@@gregoryblajian8951 There are stable and unstable lagrange points. JWST for instance is in L2 which is unstable, it needs to use a small amount of fuel to keep it there or it will drift away. L3 and L4 are stable, so anything placed there would not need fuel to maintain their position. That said, putting the ISS in L3 or L4 would be way more risky, way less practical, and basically pointless. Those damn laws of physics really do force you to crash it into the ocean.
The average car has about 3 miles of wires, so 8 miles is not that much actually. All told maybe a few thousand dollars of scrap metal vs the tens (hundreds?) of millions it take to bring down.
Ellie thanks for another excellent and timely summary. Controlled de-orbit is the only way to go. We don't want a repeat of Skylab and get a dozen dingos killed this time. 😅
Good Wirk Ellie Thank you it’s Nice to see you Are happy doing These videos Excellent approach and attitude and thanks for just being YOU ELLIE I COUNT YOU AS BEING ON TEAM FREEDOM Ellie Carry forth you are GREAT GO TEAM FRE Tz
I feel like they could de-couple or "cut" apart the modules and use Star Ship to put big whole picese in the giant storage bay. It would be great publicity for Star ship and demonstrate its usfullness.
Well three quarters of those upgrades were already installed. Starting in 2021, the first quarter went in. With subsequent ones in 2022 and 2023. The final install is in 2025. So ISS will get from five to nine years of use of each upgrade phase through 2030. Perhaps longer if there are any de orbit delays.
Doing new space exploration is a better use of funds. At some point, maybe some Earth museum pieces can be brought back cheaply in returning Starships.
At a higher orbit you risk other satellites smashing into it. Its at a pretty low orbit right now, not much between it and earth. There are a huge number of satellites you'd have to avoid before you made it to a parking obit, all starlink satellites for instance. Not to mention it would take 10 times the fuel/trust to get up there.
I guess I'm naive or uninformed, but I never knew there was a termination date for the ISS. I had assumed we were going to build and build, until we had an actual city in space. How did I miss this? It's very disappointing news indeed...
I agree, and I can't see why they can't still do that. Sure, they have to fix or modify parts of the ISS at some point, but just like the many missions to Mars, the ISS might be able to serve a purpose for far longer than they estimate, if just a few fixes/upgrades are made. Soon many Starships will have the capacity to take multiple astronauts and many tons of materials and equipment to the ISS for very little money (starting two or three years from now). Why not leverage that capability to keep the ISS in orbit? I'm sIure it can be done. They just have to want to do it. They probably don't want to let it become a maintenance nightmare. They may want to spend billions of dollars on a brand new station. I say upgrade the wonderful ISS that is already there, or send it out into geostationary orbit to be used as an unmanned platform for "deep" space experiments farther away from Earth.
@@scottelly2 I totally agree, though I suspect a big part of the reason why the shutdown is in play is due to high costs and lack of significant research goals...
Thanks Ellie. I am a little puzzled though, the report is US centric but the space station is 'International' so what involvement does the international community have in the ISS de-orbit?
NASA will be able to use SpaceX cargo dragon and Dreamchaser reusable cargo vehicle to return equipment and mementos from the ISS before it is deorbited.
ISS-An expensive lab experiment that only a select few get to visit. And just what are the technical spinoffs all these years i.e. one has to really research on the web just what benefits we have got in all these years if any up there. Yea they grew some tomatoes and did some funny tricks for us on camera but let's hope that private industries build the next one and show us some really great results of being up there.
Not everything old needs to be preserved. I'm okay with de-orbiting it. I think, perhaps the one unique part that might look nice on display would be the cupola, but no way to separate that out and bring it home, so barring that, bring it down in a controlled fashion.
1962: Requires only 7 years to develop tech needed to send men to walk on the Moon and safely return to Earth. 2024: Requires 8 years to develop tech to safely junk the ISS from Low Earth Orbit.
@codetech5598 You are missing my point, actually, your point. Wouldn't take 8 years to develop technology to de-orbit, 8 years to send it out on one long last mission, yes. IMHO
I would say that's unlikely, but I guess it could happen. The US and ESA might offer to purchase those components for two or three billion dollars/euros, and Russia surely knows that it would cost much more for them to make a new space station out of whatever parts they would remove, so they might just take the bribe (payment). It does seem a little crazy that the Russians are still sending Cosmonauts to the ISS, while Russia fights a war in Ukraine, and multiple members of the ISS alliance are providing weapons to Ukraine in order to fight that war against Russia. What a weird situation!
It will be a pity to see the ISS go, I wonder if it could be dumped softly on the moon and use it to test for cosmic radiation and such as a means to understand how people could live there, or even as a starter home?
The commenters said something to effect of an augmented trunk section with tanks and propulsion would be the basis of DV. So will it operate singly or as 2 elements, ie one at front, the dragon capsule with its PICA shielding and the trunk at aft end of station to provide better steering during reentry phase ? I'm guessing the arrays would be better stowed or folded back, or can they slow reentry and act as drag devices like a shuttlecock or badminton shuttle ?
LOL I don't think the solar arrays will last long when/if the ISS is de-orbited with them in place. I see no reason to remove or fold them though. They are all going to just burn up anyway, presumably, and if they don't burn up completely, then they will most-likely at least burn off (i.e. break off or melt off their mounts, and detach from the ISS). I would imagine the ISS will break apart into many pieces as it enters the atmosphere, like some large meteors do.
I agree with some of the comments about just sending it away. Why not just launch/push it into the outer cosmos, like the Voyagers? It's got cameras, and equipment that could send back tons of data. It could just float away for the next several thousand years, all the while showing us first hand knowledge of it's trip.
The Delta-V requirements to push an object the mass of the ISS just out of Earth orbit, never mind on an escape trajectory out of the solar system would likely be prohibitively expensive.
I think a lil push with dragon to deorbit ISS and guide starliner to earth a long with it then undock starliner and have beoing set to manually control starliner and it's systems to guide it it way to nm as the deorbit of ISS
I will so miss watching the brightest and fastest " STAR " traverse my piece of heaven every 90 minutes above my domacile and laboratory every night as I try verily to ponder the meaning of life and everything --- go bravely into history and the darkness of death my little star --- my nights will be more sad and so lonely without your cheerful race across my now darker heavenly view !!! .........
Is it not possible to make a falcon 9 second stage tanker version with a dragon coupler on top like the dragon? Surely a Merlin engine is more powerful than the Draco engines. And way cheaper to build.
It's true that the Merlin engine develops far greater thrust than a set of Draco thrusters, but I think it's the ability to carefully control the orbit of the ISS over weeks and months is what matters to NASA for this application. Finesse rather than raw power is what counts in this instance.
So a substantial building, not exposed to the weather, not even exposed to gravity, has to be thrown away after 25 years. A mobile home in Alaska lasts longer! A virtual symbol of grotesque government waste.
I also think that 843 m dollars is wasted on the process to de orbit ISS is the new vehicle is able to guide it on the trajectory to the ocean it should be reusable it would be cool to preserve it for future missions later
Not sure why they don't break it up in space into smaller modules for deorbit. It was built in modules surely you could break it apart and deorbiting smaller modules ( I believe there are 16) would be much simpler and less risk. Even if you just broke it into 4 parts?
You need to be able to attach the deorbit vehicle to the ISS using an international docking adapter. Any module without this docking port would be subject to an uncontrolled reentry.
They're planning to de-orbit the ISS because it is not considered safe to continue using it after about 2030. Would you REALLY want to use an unsafe structure as an "emergency backup" when it's like 30 years old? I don't think they should keep using it, considering the fact that SpaceX could probably make a much bigger, state-of-the-art, new space station out of stainless steel, and deliver it to orbit for less than the cost of sending the ISS to orbit the Moon, and make it safe to use there as an "emergency backup." It does seem insane to just de-orbit something that cost over $200 billion to create though. I think they should find something better to do with it than just trashing it. Maybe they've considered all sort of options though, and believe that de-orbiting is really the best thing to do. I think they should just sell it to the highest bidder that qualifies to fulfill various contractual obligations that they could require to be met when purchasing it (i.e. de-orbiting it safely in the event the buyer decides to abandon it), as long as the bidding starts at a reasonable and meaningful amount of money, like $5 billion, or something like that.
I agree. They could study how it fares in such a high orbit that way too. We need to learn as much as we can about that sort of stuff, right? After-all, aren't we going to have a massive space station in geosynchronous orbit some day?
Axiom Space are planning to send new modules up to the ISS later this decade and eventually detach them as their own space station when the ISS retires.
Save ISS?....No. If it were my choice I'd have dumped it in ocean years ago and diverted it's budget to Artemis or something else useful....A lot people don't realize this, but ISS hasn't really done anything really ground breaking given it's very high cost. Any sort of cost benefit analysis would show ISS is very expensive for not much return.
I think this is a dumb idea. Why not make another Voyager type spacecraft but put it inside of the ISS. It would provide shielding help and make it cheaper. It's already at a high velocity in orbit so you would just put in your equipment which also seals itself and attach it to itself using cables and straps. Lynnwood accelerate the entire system out into outer solar orbit
Why couldn't it be Pushed to the moon and fitted with landing aids, landed there as a temp moon base.. Save a lot of mony in hardware that could be reused....
@@morrispaulmarks4101 Structurally built for zero G, not 1/6 G (i.e.: Moon’s gravity). Not to mention the loads it would not survive decelerating as part of landing.
I agree with this type of solution. Why not just launch/push it into the outer cosmos, like the Voyagers? It's got cameras, and could send back tons of data. It could just float away for the next several thousand years.
It would probably be more practical to use a Starship for that. In fact, they will probably end up just using a Starship for the ISS de-orbiting process if they actually go through with de-orbiting it. (I'm hoping they won't, because I think they could use the ISS for other things if they keep it in orbit, such as pushing it to a higher orbit to study how the sun's radiation affects it, with a bunch of remote experiments onboard.)
Why not send it out to deep space with a couple of "volunteers" to man it for as long as possible, seeing parts of our solar system never seen by a human present. If it can de-orbited it can sure be sent out of LEO, yes the volunteers would die on station but I'm sure there would be shortage of willing participants. Hate to see it be waisted like this when it could be used for the greatest human adventure.
Starship, and new infrastructure ,will have been well established by the time they deorbit the space station. Seems premature to be speculating on how to use of getting it down
Why can't we just send it to orbit our Moon? Nothing can be saved or reused if it is reentered into Earths atmosphere so send it farther out away from us.
I still don't see why we cant park it in a LaGrange orbit, and use it for something especially since space x is making a deorbit veh, than can prob accomplish this.
Except that the closest Lagrange point, L1, is 930000 miles out and parking it there, if it is even possible, is several orders of magnitude more difficult than deorbiting it from LEO into an ocean. Then there's the question of why and what it would be used for as its life support systems are aging out and unsafe, and assistance is now a million miles away. Any sane planner would nix everything about this idea unless it was to preserve the station as a time capsule for a future spacefaring civilization. But even that use is problematic. L1 is also a meta stable lagrange point, meaning that station keeping maneuvers using propellant are still required to keep it there and not have it drift off. Can't easily do that on a large unmanned derelict structure either.
Personally, I think SpaceX should use the money to launch several cargo Starship missions as well as Crew Dragons and/or crewed Starships, and disassemble the station module by module. Then they can take the modules back down from space, like the opposite of what the space shuttle did, and put the parts in museums and or sell them to collectors and businesses. They could probably do that for the cost of the contract should the Starship vehicle be developed sufficiently by 2030.
Apparently they're not powerful enough. The ISS is 450 tons, and requires very powerful engines to push it (accelerate it) quickly enough to get an accurate re-entry path. At least that's my guess as to why they want a more powerful spacecraft. You'd think they could just put more propellant on a dragon, but maybe it's not that simple. A new "trunk" that might resemble the second stage of a Falcon 9 should probably do the trick, but maybe not. Surely they could use a Falcon Heavy to launch such a two-stage "Dragon" (maybe they could call it "Dragon Heavy") into orbit with enough fuel for the mission.
@@scottelly2 one Super Draco engine has over 7t of thrust. So Dragon hast over 60t of thrust using the Super Draco engines. I think that is to much for something like the ISS which has solarpanels mounted which are too instable. I think the Vehiceles which reboost the ISS has less power than the Dragon. But the Dragon is too weak using the normal Draco engines, this is why the Dragon cant reboost the ISS.
