Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles...n-2031.htm

INTRO: According to NASA, the International Space Station (ISS) will operate until 2030 before crashing into the Pacific Ocean in early 2031. In a report this week, the US space agency stated the ISS would fall into an area of the ocean known as Point Nemo.

This is the furthest point on Earth from land, also known as the spacecraft cemetery. Many old satellites and other space debris have crashed there, including the Russian space station Mir in 2001. Commercial space activities near Earth will take the lead in the future, says NASA.

The International Space Station (ISS) has been in orbit since 1998 and has been continually crewed since 2000, thanks to a collaborative initiative comprising five space agencies. In its microgravity laboratory, more than 3,000 scientific studies have taken place. It is, however, only permitted to run until 2024, and all partners must accept any extension.

According to NASA, the intention to decommission the ISS represented a shift to the private sector for operations in low-Earth orbit or space around Earth. Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at Nasa Headquarters, said that the private sector is technically and financially capable of creating and managing retail low-Earth orbit destinations with Nasa's help.... (MORE - details)

Hopefully by 2031 Blue's Orbital Reef and Axiom Space's station will be ready to take over from the ISS. We might even imagine Starships playing the role of temporary orbital stations. Each of the crew variants will have as much internal pressurized volume as the current ISS. So fill that volume with labs and scientists, fire them into orbit and then return them to the ground when their experiments are concluded. The permanent stations like Reef and Axiom would just be for the long-term projects.

I don't know how far along Reef is at the moment. (Blue is very secretive.) But Texas-based Axiom is the real deal, working closely with NASA in Houston and already constructing its first space station module in cooperation with Franco-Italian Thales Alenia Space, Europe's biggest satellite manufacturer and the manufacturer of the current European modules on the Space Station (there are several of them). Axiom's early modules will be attached to the ISS where they have a NASA contract to provide expansion space for the ISS. Subsequent Axiom modules will be added to the first Axiom module while it is attached to the ISS. Then when it comes time in nine years to deorbit the existing ISS, the Axiom portion of the Station will detach to become its own independent Axiom space station. The first Axiom module is penciled in to launch to the ISS in 2023. (It hasn't been announced what rocket will launch it, but Falcon Heavy could probably do it.)

So there's already a replacement plan in work.

Axiom Space render of their modules attached to the ISS

Photos of pieces of the first Axiom module that is intended to attach to the International Space Station and be the initial piece of the eventual independent Axiom Space Station after ISS is retired and deorbited. It's being constructed by Thales Alenia Space (one of Europe's largest satellite manufacturers) in Turin Italy. So this is more than talk, they actually have hardware.

https://twitter.com/Thales_Alenia_S/stat...3233696769