International Space Station to be 'sunk' after 2020

Yahoo ^ | 7/26/11 | AFP

[NormsRevenge]

Russia and its partners plan to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to leave space junk, its space agency said on Wednesday.

"After it completes its existence, we will be forced to sink the ISS. It cannot be left in orbit, it's too complex, too heavy an object, it can leave behind lots of rubbish," said deputy head of Roskosmos space agency Vitaly Davydov.

"Right now we've agreed with our partners that the station will be used until approximately 2020," he said in comments released on Wednesday.

Space junk is becoming an increasingly serious headache.

A piece of space debris narrowly missed the space station last month in a rare incident that forced the six-member crew to scramble to their rescue craft.

The ISS, which orbits 350 kilometres (220 miles) above Earth, is a sophisticated platform for scientific experiments bringing together space agencies from Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Launched in 1998, the ISS was initially expected to remain in space for 15 years until an agreement was reached to keep it operating through 2020.

By going into a watery grave, the ISS will repeat the fate of its predecessor space station Mir, which Russia sank in the Pacific Ocean in 2001 after 15 years of service.

Moscow this month proclaimed the beginning of "the era of the Soyuz" after the US shuttle's last flight left the Russian system as the sole means for delivering astronauts to the ISS.

[NormsRevenge]

A NASA image of the International Space Station (ISS) and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles. Russia and its partners plan to plunge the ISS into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to leave space junk, the space agency said

[tallyhoe]

Yea the Russians didn’t pay for it we did! Like just about everything else we pay for it!!!

[buccaneer81]

Counting down to space program haters and Luddites to appear on the thread. 3...2...1...

[NormsRevenge]

Hey.. ret me out of here! Hey! Comeback. you forgot me!!

[NormsRevenge]

That thing is gonna leave a heck of a debris field.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

[NormsRevenge]

The International Space Station's length and width is
about the size of a football field. Credit: NASA

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Drop it on Chicago!

[NormsRevenge]

• The ISS solar array surface area could cover the U.S. Senate Chamber three times over.
• ISS eventually will be larger than a five-bedroom house.
• ISS will have an internal pressurized volume of 33,023 cubic feet, or equal that of a Boeing 747.
• The solar array wingspan (240 ft) is longer than that of a Boeing 777 200/300 model, which is 212 ft.
• Fifty-two computers will control the systems on the ISS.
• More than 100 space flights will have been conducted on five different types of launch vehicles over the course of the station’s construction.
• More than 100 telephone-booth sized rack facilities can be in the ISS for operating the spacecraft systems and research experiments
• The ISS is almost four times as large as the Russian space station Mir, and about five times as large as the U.S. Skylab.
• The ISS will weigh almost one million pounds (925,627 lbs). That’s the equivalent of more than 320 automobiles.
• The ISS measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s equivalent to the length of a football field including the end zones (well, almost – a football field is 360 feet).
• 3.3 million lines of software code on the ground supports 1.8 million lines of flight software code.
• 8 miles of wire connects the electrical power system.
• In the International Space Station’s U.S. segment alone, 1.5 million lines of flight software code will run on 44 computers communicating via 100 data networks transferring 400,000 signals (e.g. pressure or temperature measurements, valve positions, etc.).
• The ISS will manage 20 times as many signals as the Space Shuttle.
• Main U.S. control computers have 1.5 gigabytes of total main hard drive storage in U.S. segment compared to modern PCs, which have ~500 gigabyte hard drives.
• The entire 55-foot robot arm assembly is capable of lifting 220,000 pounds, which is the weight of a Space Shuttle orbiter.
• The 75 to 90 kilowatts of power for the ISS is supplied by an acre of solar panels.

[NautiNurse]

Do you happen to know how that photo was taken?

[Boiling point]

Oh man, I hate to see that much money go down the drain. They should just keep adding on to it like an Alabama mobile home.

[Kirkwood]

With a camera.

[NautiNurse]

What camera?

[Apercu]

Russia is now reconsidering.

[NormsRevenge]

not sure, either a cargo ship or another craft?

or maybe they got the little remote round gizmo to work..

or? ;-)

[andyk]

With a camera.

Hahaha

[NormsRevenge]

Think of the possibilites, Comrade!

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (L) and the head of Russian space agency, Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, walk at the Russian mission control center in Korolyov, outside Moscow in April 2011. As the United States winds down its shuttle programme in a symbolic twist in a long-running space rivalry, Russia will gain complete control of access to the International Space Station

[Bean Counter]

yah....I wonder how many people even remember what the L-5 Society was all about....what dreams there once were for manned space flight.

But like I said on a different thread about this, there really is no other choice for disposing of an artifact as big as the ISS other than to do a controlled reentry the same way Mir was retired. It simply cannot be abandoned in orbit to come screaming down where ever it happens to be.

[juma]

Why can’t they just drag it to an orbit around the moon ? Seems like a good place to put it, Same with Hubble, out of the way, don’t have to land on the moon, but will be able to observe so much better stuff, better yet, have the orbit follow the dark side of the moon, then they can have covert opps going on. LOL

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

it irritates the water out of me that the space program is going to be scrapped. Sure hope private industry steps up to the plate. Doubt it though. Too expensive.

It's all kind of things like this that benefit EVERYBODY that are going to get the axe. This and military leap to mind. Lefties need the rest to bribe their voters.

We were once a great country.

[org.whodat]

Has anyone figured out what it is for yet?????