NASA must delay deorbiting the ISS, U.S. lawmakers say

NASA must delay ISS deorbit, US lawmakers say

By Meghan Bartels edited by Claire Cameron

NASA may soon work to strengthen the U.S. presence in low-Earth orbit, thanks to a key Senate committee that wants the space agency to extend the life of the International Space Station (ISS) beyond its current decommissioning date. If adopted, this decision would have international consequences for human space exploration.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee added a proposed measure to the 2026 NASA Authorization Act that would direct the space agency to extend ISS operations until 2032, two years longer than currently planned. The proposed measure also prohibits NASA from deorbiting the station until a replacement commercial space station is operational.

Perhaps the most invidious truth about human spaceflight is that the ISS is old and its days are numbered. Construction began in 1998, and humans have maintained a continuous presence on the orbiting outpost since November 2000. But space is a harsh environment, and the longer the massive station stays in orbit, the greater the chance that a catastrophic failure will bring it down to Earth.

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LEARN MORE: It’s almost time to say goodbye to the International Space Station. What happens next?

Currently, NASA and its international partners hope to keep the ISS operating until 2030. (The station was built in such a way that it requires the full attention of NASA and the Russian space agency; neither side can operate it alone.)

Then the station dies: SpaceX is building a beefed-up version of its Dragon vehicle to safely destroy the ISS in 2031. NASA hired SpaceX for the task in June 2024 in a contract worth up to $843 million – a remarkably tight deadline to design and build a specialized vehicle for an operation that must go smoothly or risk raining debris onto the Earth’s surface.

At the same time, NASA is also working to help private companies develop new orbital outposts that it could use to house astronauts and their research in low Earth orbit. NASA worked with the now-defunct Bigelow Aerospace to test an inflatable module, for example, and the agency hired Axiom Space to build what will initially be a module for the ISS, but which will later undock and fly independently as the seed of a new station.

Yet just as NASA has repeatedly delayed the retirement of the ISS (the station was built to last 15 years), timelines for potential commercial replacements have also slipped.

The Senate committee — and particularly its leaders, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state — are trying to speed things up through the authorization bill. Congress is supposed to approve an annual authorization bill to set NASA’s priorities and an appropriations bill that allocates money, but the former is often overlooked; NASA’s most recent finalized authorization bill is in 2022. And like all bills, the proposed measure must be approved by the full Senate and House of Representatives and then signed by the president to become law.

But even if the measure never becomes law, it serves as an important signal about how key lawmakers view NASA’s purpose and priorities. The language is harsh. It sets an ambitious timetable for making real progress in creating commercial space stations: Under the bill, NASA would have to publish requirements for such stations within 60 days and the final text for soliciting proposals within 90 days and would have to enter into contracts with two or more companies within 180 days. And the bill explicitly ties the timetable for space station retirement to the successful operation of a commercial replacement by prohibiting controlled deorbit until that time.

NASA and U.S. lawmakers have long feared that the inevitable demise of the ISS — whether controlled or uncontrolled — could leave the country without long-duration human spaceflight capability. Currently, the only other space station in existence is China’s Tiangong station, launching in 2021. Ultimately, it doesn’t look like the United States is ready to abandon the ISS just yet.

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