![\"2016-05-13-180645\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/2016-05-13-180645-350x217.jpg\")
Technical evaluations have shown the Station is likely to be able to press through to 2028, around the time NASA is expected to start dedicating major elements of its funding towards missions to Mars.<\/p>\nISS partners \u2013 NASA and Roscosmos \u2013 have conducted a bilateral Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) to refine procedures relating to the disposal of the Station at the end of its service life, or in the event of an emergency. The deorbit burn capability \u2013 which won\u2019t exist until at least 2017 \u2013 requires multiple docked vehicles firing in unison to push the Station to its fiery demise.<\/p>\n
ISS EOL:<\/p>\n
Providing the ISS can avoid a critical failure, the Station still has many years ahead of her before the day comes when a deorbit burn will be the only remaining option.<\/p>\n
The Station is expected to continue operations until at least 2024, a date that could be extended as far as 2028. However, the financial and logistical support from its international partners may eventually be overtaken by the condition of critical hardware required to keep the orbital outpost operational.<\/p>\n
Technical evaluations have shown the Station is likely to be able to press through to 2028, around the time NASA is expected to start dedicating major elements of its funding towards missions to Mars.<\/p>\n
While the hardware-limiting factor requires no immediate demand for a deorbit plan, an emergency scenario \u2013 where the Station becomes crippled and has to be evacuated \u2013 would potentially call for its disposal within a relatively short timescale.<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) members have taken a keen interest in the safe disposal of the Station, known as the EOL (End Of Life) game plan.<\/p>\n
Back in 2013, the ASAP heard from (former) ISS Program manager Mike Suffredini, who described the evaluations on what would be an EOL scenario for the Station.<\/p>\n
\u201cNASA now has a plan so that in the event the Station must be evacuated, there will be a 14-day period in which to make a decision on whether or not to bring the ISS down,\u201d noted Mr. Suffredini at the time. \u201cThe Program is setting the contingency plan in place, although there is still a lot of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spaceflight history books (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n During this period, Russia would launch two Russian Progress vehicles to autonomously transfer propellant to the Service Module thrusters and to prepare themselves to provide additional deorbit propulsion.<\/p>\n However, further evaluations noted this was a simplified emergency plan and further considerations had to be made to ensure the huge structure would be destroyed over a safe area of ocean.<\/p>\n Almost three years later, the ASAP heard of a new TIM-level meeting between NASA and Roscosmos, held at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) at the end of April.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old adage of what goes up must come down is equally applicable to the ISS as it is to a baseball,\u201d noted the ASAP at the latest meeting conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center this week.<\/p>\n \u201cSo by in large, preparing for the process we will undergo when EOL occurs \u2013 or how to respond in an emergency \u2013 we felt was extremely important.\u201d<\/p>\n Classing the TIM as a major milestone, the ASAP members were told that the two key partners \u2013 NASA and Roscosmos \u2013 are now in unison on the EOL requirements, while the other ISS partners have also agreed to the forward plan.<\/p>\n Additional work is required on the attitude thrust control estimates, given attitude control will be a key player in the final moments of the ISS\u2019 life.<\/p>\n Other elements that were provided out of the TIM include a NASA requirement for the avionic systems to be in a working condition for at least six months after a crew evacuation. Also, work is being conducted on mitigating against onboard propellant \u201cfreezing\u201d in the cargo area of the Station.<\/p>\n However, the inclusion of a Soyuz vehicle has also now been noted, not least based on the emergency scenario where the docked Russian vehicles at the time of the EOL call will be tasked with a major part of the deorbit requirement.<\/p>\n Roscosmos has said it will aim to ensure additional Progress vehicles could be launched and docked to ISS following a contingency call, in tandem with any subsequent evacuation conducted via Soyuz.<\/p>\n Roscosmos will also conduct further analysis of the \u201cdual-axis burn concept\u201d that will be employed to deorbit the Station.<\/p>\n This forward work will take some time to complete, meaning the ISS does not currently have the capability to safely deorbit.<\/p>\n It is expected that gap in capability will be mitigated by September 2017. However, the ASAP are pleased by the progress made on a subject matter that has been on great interest to them for some years.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no question that the TIM and the agreement that was reached is an absolute victory for the entire program and the safety planning for this major system.\u201d<\/p>\n (Images: NASA and L2 \u2013 including renders from L2 artist Nathan Koga \u2013 The full gallery of Nathan\u2019s (SpaceX Dragon to MCT, SLS, Commercial Crew and more) L2 images can be *found here*)<\/p>\n (To join L2, click here: \/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ISS partners \u2013 NASA and Roscosmos \u2013 have conducted a bilateral Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) to refine procedures relating to the disposal of the Station at the end of its service life, or in the event of an emergency. The deorbit burn capability \u2013 which won\u2019t exist until at least 2017 \u2013 requires multiple docked vehicles firing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8862,233,513],"class_list":["post-39066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-asap","tag-iss","tag-progress"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2016-05-13-175727\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/2016-05-13-175727-350x222.jpg\")
That initial plan called for a period of 180 days to allow the Station to decay its path towards the deorbit altitude.<\/p>\n![\"2016-05-13-182738\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/2016-05-13-182738-350x253.jpg\")
Both agencies have created a co-written \u201cStrategy Document\u201d and a \u201cContingency Action Plan\u201d, which they will continue to refine before signing a multilateral agreement on the EOL strategy.<\/p>\n![\"2016-05-13-181258\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/2016-05-13-181258-350x282.jpg\")
Work that will be evaluated over the near-term include estimating the footprint size of the debris field, which will be better known per the final burn Delta-v parameters. The aim is to \u201cminimalize\u201d the potential of surviving debris impacting populated areas.<\/p>\n![\"Service](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Z32.jpg\")
Multiple Russian vehicles will be involved with pushing the Station towards its demise, via the deorbit burn. Previous plans called for two Progress cargo vehicles and the Station\u2019s own Service Module thrusters working together to shove the giant structure out of orbit towards entry interface.<\/p>\n![\"2016-05-13-182254\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/2016-05-13-182254-350x239.jpg\")
The Russians have noted they will implement certain software modifications necessary to allow integrated burns of multiple engines on ISS, as well as the final deorbit burn sequence from the Progress and potential Soyuz vehicles docked on the Station. at the time of any incident.<\/p>\n