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ISS space station to be deorbited in 2020...

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Patrick

Thu Jul 28 2011, 06:46AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

I cant believe this , i just cant believe this!!!
Are they bluffing or just screwing with us?

Original article.

Russia Plans to Sink the International Space Station in 2020

By Jeremy A. Kaplan

Published July 27, 2011

| FoxNews.com

Russia's space agency announced Wednesday that the International Space Station -- a space base the world's scientists and billions of U.S. tax dollars helped build and maintain some 200 miles above the surface of the Earth -- will be de-orbited and allowed to sink into the Pacific Ocean in 2020, just like its Russian predecessor, Mir.

"We will be forced to sink the ISS. We cannot leave it in orbit as it is a very complicated and a heavy object," Roscosmos' deputy head Vitaly Davydov said in an interview posted on the agency's website.

"We have agreed with our partners that the ISS would function roughly until 2020," he noted.

After sinking hundreds of millions into construction of the space station -- billions if you include the cost of the space shuttle flights that carried the ISS modules into orbit -- knowledgeable government sources and NASA spokesmen were aghast at Davydov's plans to sink the station in the ocean.

This isn't the first time I've seen Russia come out with a statement that seems to be coming out of their own stovepipes," one congressional representative told FoxNews.com. "I would give it no credence at all."

"We wouldn't allow astronauts to be on the station if there's a sense that it's limping along," he added.

NASA agreed to construct the International Space Station on January 29, 1998, in conjunction with representatives from Canada, members of the European Space Agency (ESA), and Japanese and Russian space scientists. And the space agency clearly has a different vision for the station than Russia.

"The partnership is currently working to certify on-orbit elements through 2028," NASA spokesman Joshua Buck told FoxNews.com.

Buck noted that an international panel including the U.S. and Russia met in March to evaluate the future of the space station. They identified no constraints on continuing operation through 2020 -- and at the time, emphasized their common intent to continue operation of the world's first space base into the next decade.

It was not immediately clear why Davydov made the abrupt change. Russia's space agency did not immediately respond to FoxNews.com requests for clarification. U.S Senator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and a congressional expert on NASA, told FoxNews.com the Russian comments were intended mainly to mitigate concerns about the growing issue of space junk.

"All the Russians are saying is that when the time comes to shut the station down -- whenever that is -- it will have to be brought from orbit in a planned 'crash' so thereâ€™s no space junk left behind or debris that falls in populated areas."

The Roscosmos comments come a day after the U.S. space agency met with the International board managing the ISS -- the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken -- to discuss not the end of the base but how to use it as a test bed for future tech and science projects.

NASA characterized the meeting dramatically differently, noting that potential future projects about the station include supporting voyages to an asteroid or Mars, or assisting in the development of a permanent base on the moon.

The space station represents a massive, worldwide accomplishment, spanning an area the size of a football field. It has been continuously occupied for nearly 11 years, and has travelled more than 1.5 billion miles -- the equivalent of eight round trips to the Sun -- over the course of 57,361 orbits around the Earth, NASA notes.

Deorbiting the station in 2020 simply hasn't been discussed at all, knowledgeable sources told FoxNews.com.

I have no idea where they came out with that date," a congressional source told FoxNews.com. "NASA would have advised us ahead of time if there were any agreement along those lines."

"There's a presumption that Congress and the White House fully expects ISS to be up and viable through at least 2020."

Roscosmos' plans for space after sinking the ISS were not immediately clear. Asked whether a new space station will be built, Davydov said "there are several possibilities."

Meanwhile, China moves ahead with plans for a competing space station of its own. China has an ambitious, decade-long plan beginning with the Tiangong-1 module the country plans to launch this year, which will culminate in a large space station around 2020.

During the projected one- to two-year lifetime of Tiangong-1 -- which means "Heavenly Palace" in Chinese -- an unpiloted Chinese Shenzhou-8 spacecraft will first attempt to dock with the platform, to be followed later by two piloted Shezhou missions to further hone rendezvous and docking skills, according to a report on Space.com.

The Mir space station was in operation from 1983 to 1998 before being sunk in the Pacific Ocean in a "spacecraft cemetery" not far from Christmas Island in 2000.
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Chip Fixes

Thu Jul 28 2011, 07:40AM

Registered Member #3781 Joined: Sat Mar 26 2011, 02:25AM
Location:
Posts: 701

I'll will believe it when I see it but it's unnerving that they are even thinking about it...

Bored Chemist

Thu Jul 28 2011, 11:51AM

Registered Member #193 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 07:04AM
Location: sheffield
Posts: 1022

So, the Russians think it's OK till 2020. That's 5 years better than Bush thought.
"The European Space Agency (ESA) has formally agreed to extending International Space Station (ISS) operations through at least 2020. Russia and Japan already had agreed to the extension in response to President Obama's decision last year to keep the facility operating past 2015, the end date established by the George W. Bush Administration."

from

I'm also amused that this report talks of " billions of U.S. tax dollars as if nobody else's taxes went into it.

Fraggle

Thu Jul 28 2011, 12:31PM

Registered Member #1526 Joined: Mon Jun 09 2008, 12:56AM
Location: UK
Posts: 216

Yes it does have a very peculiar tone doesn`t it given that the US has been desperately back-pedalling on the ISS for years. Ah well I guess the will just isn`t there for this sort of thing any more.

Patrick

Thu Jul 28 2011, 07:08PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

What worries me most is that they dont have to deorbit the ISS themselves (i doubt they can, its not entirely russian after all) but the could just decide to not go there any more, hold off on the support and the ESA and NASDA cant keep it going themselves. So by default the Russians could make it difficult to operate.

The failings (after 1972) of NASA just dont seem to end.

Proud Mary

Thu Jul 28 2011, 07:38PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Fox News has an international reputation as a propaganda station* - and one owned by the fabulously corrupt political manipulator Rupert Murdoch - so I'd want to see the story from more credible sources before forming a view on it.

* see Off The Rails: The Year In Fox News Misinformation

haxor5354

Thu Jul 28 2011, 08:10PM

Registered Member #2063 Joined: Sat Apr 04 2009, 03:16PM
Location: Toronto
Posts: 352

Proud Mary wrote ...

* see Off The Rails: The Year In Fox News Misinformation

its FauxNews afterall, what do you expect?

Patrick

Thu Jul 28 2011, 08:18PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

-sigh

Mattski

Fri Jul 29 2011, 03:59AM

Registered Member #1792 Joined: Fri Oct 31 2008, 08:12PM
Location: University of California
Posts: 527

Patrick wrote ...

What worries me most is that they dont have to deorbit the ISS themselves (i doubt they can, its not entirely russian after all) but the could just decide to not go there any more, hold off on the support and the ESA and NASDA cant keep it going themselves. So by default the Russians could make it difficult to operate.

The failings (after 1972) of NASA just dont seem to end.

The ISS is in a very low orbit, low enough that atmospheric drag will cause it to lose altitude. By the looks of this plot

, they have something like a year or two they can leave it before they need to intervene and re-raise its altitude or gracefully de-orbit it. If the political support for the funding necessary to keep it in orbit is lost they will have to de-orbit it while they still have the resources to do so, not after.

Patrick

Fri Jul 29 2011, 05:24AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Mattski wrote ...

The ISS is in a very low orbit, low enough that atmospheric drag will cause it to lose altitude. By the looks of this plot

Yes I realize your point Mattski, your right but its still a tragedy that NASA spent so much and we gain so little.
Incompetence I say.

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