The International Space Station is about to be decommissioned. Where will it go? Will it fall or be recovered?

Although the service life of the International Space Station has been extended time and again, its final retirement date is inevitable. So what will happen to the International Space Station after its retirement?

Now it seems that the biggest possibility is destruction, and NASA has already made relevant plans. The general idea is to let the International Space Station enter the Earth's atmosphere and then burn up during the fall. This sounds very simple, but in fact it is not that simple, because the previous failed example is still in front of us. The International Space Station is not the first space station in the history of human spaceflight. Before this, the United States also built a space station called "Skylab".

When Skylab was approaching its retirement deadline, the United States did not actually plan to let it fall on its own, but instead wanted to perform a controlled reentry.

At that time, the United States was in the stage of developing the space shuttle, and they wanted to use the transportation capacity of the space shuttle to bring the Skylab back after the space shuttle was developed. Unfortunately, the development of the space shuttle did not go as smoothly as expected, so the recovery of the Skylab was delayed again and again. Finally, the sun became impatient. Due to strong solar wind activity, the upper atmosphere of the earth warmed and expanded, which made the orbiting Skylab encounter more resistance from atmospheric molecules. As a result, the orbit of the Skylab dropped rapidly and finally fell into the Earth's atmosphere.

The crash of Skylab could actually be considered an accident, and a rather dangerous one at that.

The Skylab weighed more than 80 tons, and if it could not be completely burned, it would have caused a disaster if it fell to the ground. So the operators turned off the self-controlled gyroscope on the Skylab, causing the space station to roll and accelerate in the sky to increase friction. Despite this, the Skylab still did not burn completely, and part of the wreckage fell to the southwest of Australia. Fortunately, the area was sparsely populated and did not cause catastrophic consequences, but this was a lesson that could not be forgotten.

The International Space Station is much larger than Skylab, weighing more than 400 tons, about five times the size of Skylab, so letting it fall freely is definitely not an option.

In the process of controlling the International Space Station's entry into the atmosphere, various factors must be fully considered, such as the impact of the flap on the entire space station's attitude, etc. It is definitely not enough to rely solely on the space station's own power. If you want the space station to be completely burned up in the friction with the atmosphere, it is likely that several spacecraft will be needed to apply thrust control to the space station, so that there is hope of achieving a controlled reentry and burn.

Even as mentioned above, it is still very difficult for the entire space station to re-enter and burn, so it is more likely that each module will be separated and then re-entered and burned separately.

However, not all modules have power systems, and how to combine them to complete reentry is also a question to consider. So besides letting the space station burn up in the atmosphere, is there no other way to deal with it? For example, recover the space station for display, or simply convert it into a tourist venue? This idea is of course good, but it is so difficult to make the space station reenter and burn up, and it is even more difficult to recover it intact. Moreover, the space station has no thermal insulation shell, so it does not have the conditions for recovery at all.

In addition to incineration and recycling, there is another option, which is to allow the space station to continue to use its residual heat.

Although the retired space station is no longer suitable for space exploration and research, it can be handed over to some commercial organizations for commercial operation, such as developing the space tourism industry. This is indeed a good way out, but the premise is that there are organizations willing to take over. After all, the initial investment in similar space industries is very huge, because in order to keep the space station in orbit, some parts must be refurbished, and its daily maintenance costs are also a considerable expense. Whether it can eventually produce the expected benefits is an unknown thing. From this point of view, burning is likely to be the final fate of the International Space Station.

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