Musk calls for early end to ISS
Posted: Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 11:22 AM ET (1622 GMT)
Elon Musk said Thursday that the International Space Station should be deorbited years earlier than current plans. Musk, in posts on social media, said that the ISS offers "very little incremental utility" now and should be deorbited in about two years. NASA's current plans project operating the ISS to 2030, by which time the agency hopes to have one or more commercial stations in operation to take over research and related work currently done on the ISS. It's not clear if it is technically feasible to deorbit the station as soon as 2027, and doing so would disrupt plans of both companies and international partners. Key members of Congress have also recently called for keeping the ISS in orbit until commercial successors are ready. Musk didn't explain why he was now calling for the demise of the ISS, but his comments came hours after he got into a spat with an ESA astronaut regarding Musk's claims that Starliner astronauts were kept on the ISS for political reasons.
Elon Musk said Thursday that the International Space Station should be deorbited years earlier than current plans. Musk, in posts on social media, said that the ISS offers "very little incremental utility" now and should be deorbited in about two years. NASA's current plans project operating the ISS to 2030, by which time the agency hopes to have one or more commercial stations in operation to take over research and related work currently done on the ISS. It's not clear if it is technically feasible to deorbit the station as soon as 2027, and doing so would disrupt plans of both companies and international partners. Key members of Congress have also recently called for keeping the ISS in orbit until commercial successors are ready. Musk didn't explain why he was now calling for the demise of the ISS, but his comments came hours after he got into a spat with an ESA astronaut regarding Musk's claims that Starliner astronauts were kept on the ISS for political reasons.
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