Author Topic: ISS Phase Out Between 2028 and 2030 Detailed by Robyn Gatens of NASA  (Read 8238 times)

Offline JonahH

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This is a new thread to discuss a diagram that Robyn Gatens of NASA presented on November 15th, 2021 during the Joint Meeting of the Space Studies Board and Board on Physics and Astronomy.

As can be seen in the attached image, Robyn describes that the ISS will be extended to 2030, with a phase-out period expected by 2028. To prevent anyone from drawing instant conclusions, her exact quote states: "We are recommending and not announcing — I have to be careful not to say announcing — but recommending to our stakeholders that we extend International Space Station to 2030." Therefore, take the wording and the diagram below at personal discretion.

She also goes into detail stating that NASA hopes to "not have a gap in low earth orbit," stating that this is "critically important to us." Furthermore, she wants to have one or more commercial LEO destinations already in place by 2028. Conveniently, a representative of Blue Origin presented after Gatens on new details for Orbit Reef (a post will come about this if people want). They stated that it will be constructed between 2022 and 2028, with New Glenn being responsible for shuttling modules.

The full quote from Robyn Gatens on the slide is included below, as well as an audio clip of her wording.

Quote
"This is really high level and it probably takes about 10 minutes all by itself to present this slide, but this kind of shows you a timeline. We are recommending and not announcing — I have to be careful not to say announcing — but recommending to our stakeholders that we extend International Space Station to 2030. While we enable what these commercial LEO destinations that will take over after Station in order to not have a gap in low earth orbit, that's critically important to us. So, our timeline is we're hoping to have one or more commercial LEO destinations by 2028, so that we have a two year overlap to do this transition from all these utilization pieces that are now on the international space station over to commercial LEO destinations. We're also doing all we can through the ISS today to enable demand. So we're opening up private astronaut missions. We're stimulating the feasibility of manufacturing projects through our ISS national laboratory. And we're trying to refine and refine our government forecast, what the services are: the government will still want to do our commercial LEO destinations after ISS."
- Robyn Gatens, NASA

Furthermore, if anyone wants to have personal access to the event, go to this link (https://livestream.com/accounts/7036396/events/9926169/videos/227395515) and start watching at the timecode 4:08:24.

- Jonah

Offline AS_501

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Interesting post, thanks.  So what is the ultimate driver for decommissioning/deorbting the ISS?  Removing the ISS from NASA's annual budget and shifting to the commercial LEO stations?  What happens if engineers decide the station can be safely and productively operated for X additional years?  Hand it over lock, stock and barrel to a commercial operator?  The final chapter of the ISS will be interesting indeed.

PS:  I'm aware all this has been hashed out already on other threads.

Welcome to the forum!
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Offline JonahH

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Interesting post, thanks.  So what is the ultimate driver for decommissioning/deorbting the ISS?  Removing the ISS from NASA's annual budget and shifting to the commercial LEO stations?  What happens if engineers decide the station can be safely and productively operated for X additional years?  Hand it over lock, stock and barrel to a commercial operator?  The final chapter of the ISS will be interesting indeed.

PS:  I'm aware all this has been hashed out already on other threads.

Welcome to the forum!

Hi AS_501,
Thanks for the warm welcome! From what the topic seemed to be during today's meeting, NASA is leaning into the philosophy from an infamous Jim Bridenstine quote a few years back: even though NASA is currently providing both the supply and demand, they want to shift to just being the demand. In the place of NASA, commercial companies can fill the void of supply, as we have already seen in the Commercial Crew Program. Just for additional context, companies such as Blue Origin (Orbital Reef) as well as Nanoracks were represented on the panel this quote was pulled from.

Hope that helps!
- Jonah

Offline AS_501

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Interesting post, thanks.  So what is the ultimate driver for decommissioning/deorbting the ISS?  Removing the ISS from NASA's annual budget and shifting to the commercial LEO stations?  What happens if engineers decide the station can be safely and productively operated for X additional years?  Hand it over lock, stock and barrel to a commercial operator?  The final chapter of the ISS will be interesting indeed.

PS:  I'm aware all this has been hashed out already on other threads.

Welcome to the forum!

Hi AS_501,
Thanks for the warm welcome! From what the topic seemed to be during today's meeting, NASA is leaning into the philosophy from an infamous Jim Bridenstine quote a few years back: even though NASA is currently providing both the supply and demand, they want to shift to just being the demand. In the place of NASA, commercial companies can fill the void of supply, as we have already seen in the Commercial Crew Program. Just for additional context, companies such as Blue Origin (Orbital Reef) as well as Nanoracks were represented on the panel this quote was pulled from.

Hope that helps!
- Jonah

Yes it does, thanks.  Deep down inside I just don't want to see the ISS deorbited until it is beyond repair.
Launches attended:  Apollo 11, ASTP (@KSC, not Baikonur!), STS-41G, STS-125, EFT-1, Starlink G4-24, Artemis 1
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Offline Danderman

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The fly in the ointment is going to be a political push to privatize ISS.

Offline AS_501

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Agreed
Launches attended:  Apollo 11, ASTP (@KSC, not Baikonur!), STS-41G, STS-125, EFT-1, Starlink G4-24, Artemis 1
Notable Spacecraft Observed:  Echo 1, Skylab/S-II, Salyuts 6&7, Mir Core/Complete, HST, ISS Zarya/Present, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Dragon Demo-2, Starlink G4-14 (8 hrs. post-launch), Tiangong

Offline woods170

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The fly in the ointment is going to be a political push to privatize ISS.

Privatize something that is already in the process of falling apart?

Russians tried that with MIR. Didn't work out so well.

Offline libra

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The fly in the ointment is going to be a political push to privatize ISS.

Privatize something that is already in the process of falling apart?

Russians tried that with MIR. Didn't work out so well.

I vaguely remember a person with the name of D. Anderman being involved with Mircorp (but I may be wrong or mistaking that person for Jeffrey Manber)  ;D

Offline dglow

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The fly in the ointment is going to be a political push to privatize ISS.

Privatize something that is already in the process of falling apart?

Russians tried that with MIR. Didn't work out so well.

I vaguely remember a person with the name of D. Anderman being involved with Mircorp (but I may be wrong or mistaking that person for Jeffrey Manber)  ;D

No, you're thinking of S. R. Hadden.   ;)

Offline Garrett

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This has probably already been discussed to death in the past, but do we know (beyond speculation, dare I hope) what is salvageable and/or worth salvaging from the ISS? Specifically from the USOS.

Any modules? (Quest airlock, MPLM, ...)
Racks? (sleeping quarters, freezers, glove boxes, ovens, toilets, ...)

Presumably they could only be salvaged for use in a similar orbit.
- "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." - Indiana Jones

Offline dglow

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Presumably they could only be salvaged for use in a similar orbit.

The Axiom station will be right there, literally. And Orbital Reef have a stated goal of recovering and reusing ISS hardware.

Offline yg1968

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A lot of the information in that slide can be found in the thread on commercial LEO destinations thread:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53450.0

Proposals for CLD habitats (Phase I) were due on August 26th and NASA wants the habitats (phase II) to be ready for 2028, so that there is a 2 year overlap period between ISS and the commercial habitats from 2028 to 2030.

Axiom already has a contract with NASA for a habitat for 2024, that habitat would be attached to the ISS from 2024 to 2030 (it would likely become a free flyer in 2030).
« Last Edit: 11/16/2021 08:22 pm by yg1968 »

Offline su27k

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Yeah, this should be merged into the CLD thread.

The fly in the ointment is going to be a political push to privatize ISS.

Is there still appetite for such a push? There was one under Trump administration but it quickly died, and now we have CLD, I just don't see the reason for another push, a privatized ISS is not going to be able to compete with private stations, just like a privatized SLS won't be able to complete with private rockets.

Offline CameronD

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The fly in the ointment is going to be a political push to privatize ISS.

Is there still appetite for such a push? There was one under Trump administration but it quickly died, and now we have CLD, I just don't see the reason for another push, a privatized ISS is not going to be able to compete with private stations, just like a privatized SLS won't be able to complete with private rockets.

Whether a privatized ISS could compete or not really depends on the financial model in play and the intended (new) conops.  For an earthbound example: If you needed a new car in the current climate, do you order a new one off of the plan and wait months for delivery, or do you buy a used one you can test-drive right now knowing it won't last quite as long?
« Last Edit: 11/17/2021 11:58 pm by CameronD »
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine - however, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are
going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

Offline Cherokee43v6

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The real fly in the ointment for any sort of ISS extension/privatization appears to be the status of the Russian segment.  Specifically its structural health.  We have heard about cracks forming in Zarya, which is at the heart of the station complex.  It has also been made very clear that the US side is dependent and deeply integrated with the Russian side such that it can't be just cut loose and mated with a new propulsion block should the Russians decide it is not worth keeping their side operational any longer.

What do we know about the structural health of the US side of the station?

I know there was some speculative talk of moving elements, such as the cupola, to Lunar Gateway, and at least one Axiom animation shows the relocation of at least one of the ISS science modules to the Axiom station ports prior to separation.  So how much of ISS would be able to be moved to someplace like Axiom or Orbital Reef?
"I didn't open the can of worms...
        ...I just pointed at it and laughed a little too loudly."

Offline Danderman

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I resemble that remark.

To set the record straight, private operation of Mir was actually going well, until The Powers That Be demanded Russia de-orbit the station.

There is a lot of backstory that has not been revealed about the end of Mir, although Orphans of Apollo tells some of the story.

Offline woods170

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Presumably they could only be salvaged for use in a similar orbit.

The Axiom station will be right there, literally. And Orbital Reef have a stated goal of recovering and reusing ISS hardware.

There is usually a wide gap between an ambitious stated goal and what is actually done. Particularly in spaceflight.

Offline woods170

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I resemble that remark.

To set the record straight, private operation of Mir was actually going well, until The Powers That Be demanded Russia de-orbit the station.

There is a lot of backstory that has not been revealed about the end of Mir, although Orphans of Apollo tells some of the story.

I disagree with your sentiment. In the spaceflight community it is a well-known fact that Mir (and privatization of Mir) went away primarily as the result of intense pressure from non-Russian ISS partners (particularly NASA and ESA were exerting intense pressure on Russia) as well as MirCorp screwing the pooch at a critical moment.

Privatization of Mir was not actually going well. The first mission to prepare Mir for extended operations (Soyuz TM-30) was successful as far as its own mission goals were involved. But the survey done by Zalyotin and Kaleri resulted in a long list of items that needed to be fixed or replaced or cleaned (nobody cares to live in a space station where breathing means inhaling dangerously high levels of airborne funghi and fungal spores) before safe commercial operations of Mir could start. Another four TM-30-style missions were needed to bring Mir up to the level of being ready and safe enough for extended operations. At that time (around 2000) MirCorp didn't have the funds for another four maintenance missions.
Next, a combination of bad decisions by MirCorp leadership and investors walking away from MirCorp (the first internet technology bubble had just burst) and NASA and ESA doing their thing, led to the privatization plans collapsing. MirCorp's only hard customer (Dennis Tito) also noticed this and abandoned the sinking ship that was MirCorp.

That terminated any prospect of Russia making some serious money by privatizing Mir. As such it became an obstacle to Russia's cooperation on the ISS and it was quickly deorbited.
« Last Edit: 11/25/2021 09:04 am by woods170 »

Offline libra

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Brian Burroughs in Dragonfly describes the desperate atempts by the crew in 1997 at repairing the glycol leaks... and it wasn't pretty.
Mir was on its knees...

Offline woods170

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Brian Burroughs in Dragonfly describes the desperate atempts by the crew in 1997 at repairing the glycol leaks... and it wasn't pretty.
Mir was on its knees...

Yeah... I always wondered what the h*ll Energia and MirCorp were thinking. Mir, in 2000 was already beyond its lifetime. But somehow Energia figured they could run the station safely for another 5 to 10 years. Crazy...


Agreed on Dragonfly. Good book, shows in great detail how Mir was already in a lot of trouble in the latter half of the 1990s.
I've got the Dutch translation of the book, where the title 'Dragonfly' was changed to 'Vuurvogel', which is Dutch for 'Firebird' (referring to the fire onboard Mir in february 1997).
« Last Edit: 11/26/2021 01:57 pm by woods170 »

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