Space Station to Be Sunk After 2020

07-27-2011 • Discovery.com

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, the 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 220 miles above Earth, is a sophisticated platform for scientific experiments bringing together space agencies from Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

1 Comments in Response to Space Station to Be Sunk After 2020

Comment by Ronald Whittaker

Entered on: 7/27/2011 10:43:39 PM

It bothers me that with the incredible amount of money spent on building and maintaining this station that they are actually planning to deep six it after a short number of years. It reminds me of the disgusting way that NASA cruelly discarded Skylab which was an American innovation and could have been maintained and used for several more years.

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