The ISS Is Going to Come Down to Earth

Did you know that NASA has plans to bring the International Space Station back down to Earth? The ISS is a major feat of space engineering, but it is getting old for a space station, so it will sadly be taken out of commission in 2030. Because drag from the Earth’s upper atmosphere will eventually cause the ISS to crash to Earth, NASA has plans to execute a controlled deorbit in 2031. In this plan, a deorbit vehicle will bring the ISS to land in one of the emptiest places on Earth, a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean called the “Spacecraft Cemetery”, which is home to hundreds of deorbited satellites. This plan makes it so that we don’t have to worry about a million pounds of space debris raining on us from above when the ISS deorbits!