I feel conflicted on deorbiting the ISS at the end of its operational life. It is showing its age, and newer space stations will be no doubt be better, but it seems a shame to lose such an iconic piece of history.

I wonder if it would be possible to preserve it in space as a museum for future generations to visit. Thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think they would have to be able to actively jettison all the modules. For one, a loose cluster will be really hard to predict the impact zone. NASA does try to make sure debris falls over large areas of open ocean.

But I also think it isn't operationally workable. I don't think the joints can be remotely disconnected. That means your suggestion requires having crew on board or maybe even doing a series of spacewalks to do this work. I don't think NASA would be ok with having a bunch of loose and uncontrolled modules in the vicinity of crew spacewalking and eventually a departing capsule. It would be really hard to manage collision risk in that scenario.

So I think either they would try to ditch the solar panels in a controlled fashion so they can more accurately deorbit the whole thing into the pacific, or they'll have to develope small bolt on thruster packs that can safely jettison the modules 1 by 1.