How the station comes down
NASA's plan fixes four moments. The deorbit vehicle (the craft that pushes the station down) docks eighteen months before the end, and the last crew leaves at six months.
In plain terms Altitude falls left to right. Time runs in months counted back from the final burn, not in calendar dates. Each flag is a step the plan names.Source · NASA · June 2024
- t -18 Deorbit vehicle docks
- t -6 Last crew departs
- t -0.1 Burn series begins
- t 0 Final re-entry burn
The station is not worn out
That falling line is a schedule, not a diagnosis. NASA drew every step of it on the ground, years before the first engine fires. The station is old, and it does leak, but nothing on board sets the year it stops.
What most people think
The station is ending because it is falling apart. Cracks and leaks have run it out of life.
What the data shows
$843mdeorbit contract, 2024
NASA picked SpaceX to build the craft that will push the station down. Its delivery date, not its hardware, sets the year.
NASA selected SpaceX in June 2024 to build the US Deorbit Vehicle, a single award worth up to $843 million.
In plain terms Two panels: on the left what most people assume, on the right what the numbers show, with the one figure that settles it.Source · NASA · 26 June 2024
Six moments, one of them decisive
NASA bought the ending before anything on board gave way. And the 2030 date itself came from an agreement: five space agencies signed up to run the station that long, and Russia, one of the five, through at least 2028.
Both dated decisions, in 2024 and 2026, were made on the ground, years before the station's last day.
In plain terms Each row is one dated step, read top to bottom. The marked rows are the two decisions this issue turns on.Source · GAO-26-107805 · 17 June 2026
Why the choice lands in 2027
The timeline put a decision in 2027 and an ending in 2030. The gap between them is lead time. Think of booking a wedding hall: the hall needs a long lead time, so its calendar fixes your date.
The vehicle must already be docked about eighteen months before the final burn.
It weighs over 30,000 kg, so the heavier rocket is bought at least three years ahead.
Count back from 2030, then add certifying a replacement station and buying extra flights: 2027.
Source · NASA and SpaceX · 17 July 2024
Bringing it down is the cheap option
So lead time picks the year. But why bring the station down at all? Every choice costs fuel, and engineers write that bill as delta-v: the speed change a manoeuvre needs, in metres per second. Bigger number, bigger tank.
Deorbiting costs about 57 m/s of speed change. Holding the orbit for a century costs 120 to 140, and long-term storage about 760.
In plain terms Each bar is one option, and its length is the fuel that option costs, written as speed. Shorter is cheaper. The highlighted bar is the one this issue is about.Source · NASA · 2024
India's answer, priced in rupees
Dropping it in the ocean is the cheapest option, and NASA bought it. Three months later, India's Cabinet answered differently: it expanded Gaganyaan, India's human spaceflight programme, and added the first module of its own station.
The expanded Gaganyaan programme
20,100crore rupees
In 2025 Shubhanshu Shukla, a Gaganyaan pilot, flew to the station as a rehearsal and ran seven Indian experiments.
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More than doubled in a single Cabinet decision It was ₹9,000 crore before September 2024.
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Buys four more missions and the first station module All of it due by December 2028.
India's Cabinet approved the expansion on 18 September 2024, taking Gaganyaan from 9,000 crore rupees to 20,100 crore.
In plain terms One number, large, and beside it the everyday things it equals, so the size can be felt rather than read.Source · SpaceNews, ISRO · 18 September 2024
What happens if nothing is ready
India is building upward while NASA plans downward, and the two calendars nearly touch, at almost the same height above Earth. The GAO, the US government's auditor, asked NASA to write down how it will judge whether a commercial replacement is ready, including its assumptions and risks. That means the test does not exist yet.
Steve Hoeser, an engineer writing in The Space Review, goes further. He argues NASA has no power written into law to certify a station it does not own, that is, to declare it safe for crew. Think of a driving licence from an office that was never given the power to test anyone, so the licence means nothing.
Source · GAO-26-107805, The Space Review · 17 June 2026
Auditors want a written test for a replacement station. NASA may not even have the legal power to declare one safe for crew.
Same band of sky, different decade
So the replacement has no test, and maybe no examiner. The station works between 370 and 460 km. India's first crewed flight is planned for 400 km, inside that band. Same strip of sky, one arriving as the other leaves.
How to read this — Compare the rings by how far each sits from Earth, then read across to the label column for the name and the note. This diagram carries no satellite counts.
The station flies at about 415 km. India's first crewed mission is planned for 400 km, and the station's last crew departs from about 330 km.
In plain terms Each ring is one named orbit at its own height above Earth, on a squeezed scale so near and far fit together. The labels sit in a fixed column.Source · ISRO (Nov 2022), NASA, Spaceflight Now · 2022–2024