You think cracks and leaks are ending the space station. The date came from a contract NASA signed in 2024, six years early.
21 Sep 2026 · 4 min read · 15 sources
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Mission control · No 142 / 8
THE LAST EIGHTEEN MONTHS
How the station comes down
415km at the start, International Space Station
415km at the start, International Space Station
How the station comes down
Source · NASA · June 2024
Mission control · No 143 / 8
WHAT YOU ASSUME
The station is not worn out
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
That falling line is a schedule, not a diagnosis. NASA drew every step of it on the ground, years before the first engine fires.
Source · NASA · 26 June 2024
Mission control · No 144 / 8
THE DATES THAT MATTER
Six moments, one of them decisive
2000
Continuous presence begins
2024
NASA buys the deorbit vehicle
2026
Auditors name the window
2027
The decision year
2029
Vehicle delivery required
2030
Station operations end
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.
Source · GAO-26-107805 · 17 June 2026
Mission control · No 145 / 8
THE FUEL BILL
Bringing it down is the cheap option
m/s
760Park it for 10,000 years
Park it for 10,000 years graveyard-grade storage760
Park it for 100 years 120–140 m/s120
Deorbit it into the ocean the option NASA bought57Saving it costs thirteen times more fuel
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.
Source · NASA · 2024
Mission control · No 146 / 8
WHAT INDIA SPENT
India's answer, priced in rupees
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.
≈
More than doubled in a single Cabinet decisionIt was ₹9,000 crore before September 2024.
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Buys four more missions and the first station moduleAll of it due by December 2028.
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.
Source · SpaceNews, ISRO · 18 September 2024
Mission control · No 147 / 8
WHERE INDIA WILL BE
Same band of sky, different decade
415km, The station today
415km, The station today
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.
Source · ISRO (Nov 2022), NASA, Spaceflight Now · 2022–2024
