A month after formally announcing plans to extend operations of the International Space Station to 2030, NASA is making clear that is the end of the road. A new update to its ISS transition plan spells out how that end will play out, with the orbit gradually lowered until the football-field size facility reenters and any surviving pieces fall into the Pacific Ocean in January 2031. After that, NASA will buy whatever human spaceflight services it needs in low Earth orbit from companies expected to be operating their own space stations by then.
In the 2017 NASA Transition Authorization Act (P.L. 115-10), Congress required NASA to submit a transition plan explaining how it will meet its needs for human spaceflight research in LEO after ISS ends. For years the agency’s goal has been to facilitate the emergence of a commercial LEO economy that includes privately built and operated space stations with NASA as one of many customers using them instead of building another government-owned facility.
The law called for the first transition report in December 2017 with updates every two years through 2023. The original version was released a little late, on March 30, 2018, and this one, issued January 31, is NASA’s first update, almost four years later.
A mosaic of the International Space Station using images taken by the departing Crew-2 crew on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour in November 8, 2021. Credit: NASA
A lot has happened in between affecting NASA’s future human presence in LEO as the agency shifts its focus to returning astronauts to the Moon and going on to Mars.
For example, in 2020 SpaceX’s Crew Dragon restored the U.S. capability to launch people into orbit after nine years of dependence on Russia following the end of the space shuttle program. In 2021, ISS celebrated 21 years of permanent human occupancy, a testament to the strength of the partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and 11 European countries that has weathered dramatic terrestrial geopolitical changes so far unscathed. Over the past several years, NASA has embraced public-private partnerships for a wide range of human spaceflight activities including successors to ISS. It signed a contract with Axiom Space in 2020 to add a commercial module to the ISS that later will detach and become a free-flying facility, and just two months ago chose three companies, Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman, to design commercial space stations for its Commercial LEO Destinations initiative.
The updated transition report works from the assumption that ISS will last until 2030, hopefully giving one or more of those companies enough time to design, build and launch something to replace at least some of its capabilities.
In the 2017 law, the United States committed to operating ISS at least through 2024. Congressional attempts to pass a new NASA authorization bill and extend that to 2030 have not succeeded, but on December 31, the Biden Administration gave its approval to do just that. A White House commitment isn’t quite as solid as a law, but it is enough for negotiations with the other partners to commence in earnest to get their agreement.
But the ISS is old. The first modules were launched in 1998. The updated transition report asserts the U.S. On-Orbit Segment (USOS) and the Functional Cargo Block (also known as FGB or Zarya), which was built by Russia but at U.S. expense and thereby counts as a U.S. module, are in good enough shape to make it to 2030. The report says Russia has certified the modules it owns through 2024 and “will begin work on analyzing extension through 2030.” Nagging leaks in one part of the Russian segment so far have thwarted attempts to seal them. NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, insist they pose no danger to the crew, but if nothing else they illustrate the aging problem.
Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine warned the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee last October there is no guarantee the ISS will make it 2030, pushing back on the notion that it might last even longer.
NASA’s bottom line in this report is that “While the ISS will not last forever, NASA expects to be able to operate it safely through 2030.”
Then it will be deorbited. This report lays out that end-of-life process in more detail than in the past. Notionally three Russian Progress cargo spacecraft will be used to lower the ISS’s altitude until it reenters through the Earth’s atmosphere. Reentry is nominally targeted for January 2031 with any pieces that survive the fiery trip falling into the South Pacific Uninhabited Area around Point Nemo.
At 420 Metric Tons, ISS will be the largest structure to make a reentry. Russia’s Mir space station, which operated from 1986-2001, was about 130 MT when it made a controlled reentry into the Pacific on March 23, 2001. The first U.S. space station, Skylab, hosted crews in 1973 and 1974. The approximately 72 MT spacecraft made an uncontrolled reentry in 1979 spreading debris over western Australia and the Indian Ocean. Other space stations launched by the Soviet Union prior to 1986 and more recently by China that have reentered were smaller, though some were still quite sizeable. No one has been injured in any of these reentries.
Not only is ISS old, but it is expensive to operate, about $3 billion a year for NASA. That is another motivation for terminating it although NASA will still need to pay companies to use their facilities.
Congress asked NASA to provide cost estimates in the transition plan for operating the ISS through 2024, 2028 and 2030. In the 2018 report, it showed specific costs for Operations and Maintenance (O&M), research, crew and cargo, and labor and travel.
This time it does not give any detail, showing only a “sand chart.”
Budget estimate for ISS through end of life in 2031 plus two years of subsequent commercial LEO services. 2022 ISS Transition Report. Source: NASA
NASA declined to provide any more information, telling SpacePolicyOnline.com by email that “the detailed numbers are not available for public release as they are pre-decisional and procurement sensitive.”
Congress asked NASA to provide an estimate of the deorbit costs and while that item is included in the sand chart, its corresponding monetary value is obscure.
Similarly, the amount of annual cost savings NASA expects to realize by terminating ISS and shifting to commercial services is difficult to quantify based only on that chart. However, Phil McAlister, Director of NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Division, told a NASA advisory committee meeting on January 19 that NASA estimates it will be about $1.3 million in 2031, the first year, and “if all things go as planned, it will go up to as high as $1.8 billion.”
Getting from here to there will require NASA funding to encourage the commercial sector to invest. After two years of providing only one-tenth of the $150 million requested by the agency for the Commercial LEO Development (CLD) program, Congress appears poised to support it more robustly this year.
NASA requested $101 million for FY2022. In July, the House Appropriations Committee included $45 million for CLD in the FY2022 Commerce-Justice-Science bill that funds NASA. While less than half the request, it is almost three times the $17 million appropriated in FY2021. In October, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the full $101 million noting NASA had “finally” offered a rationale and roadmap for the program.
Further action on FY2022 appropriations remains stalled, however. NASA is operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that holds the agency at its FY2021 level for now.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
