When will the ISS be retired?
The International Space Station isn't going to fly forever. Its earliest modules have already spent more than 25 years in orbit, and the partner agencies have planned a gradual retirement toward the end of the 2020s or the start of the 2030s, once the structure comfortably passes 30 years of service life. This isn't a sudden shutdown — it's the natural conclusion of an engineering project that, like any structure exposed for decades to extreme thermal cycling, radiation, and micrometeorite impacts, has a technical expiration date.
The exact retirement year may still shift over time, depending on the real condition of the oldest modules and on how far along the stations meant to succeed it are. What is settled is the general approach: when the time comes, the ISS won't simply be abandoned — it will be brought down in a controlled way.
In the meantime, the ISS keeps flying overhead every single day.
Track the ISS live right nowSpaceX's plan: the deorbit vehicle
To make sure the ISS's end of life is safe and predictable, NASA contracted SpaceX to develop a vehicle purpose-built for this single mission: the so-called US Deorbit Vehicle. It isn't a conventional cargo or crew spacecraft — it's a high-powered orbital tug whose job is to dock with the station and, through a series of carefully calculated engine burns, gradually push it out of its stable orbit.
The point of this custom design is to keep full control over the reentry trajectory, something that would be far harder to guarantee if the station were simply left to lose altitude on its own.
A spacecraft graveyard in the middle of the Pacific
The planned final destination for the ISS's remains is a controlled reentry over a remote stretch of the South Pacific Ocean informally known as the "spacecraft graveyard," near a spot called Point Nemo. According to the most commonly cited estimates, it's the point on the planet farthest from any inhabited landmass, surrounded by thousands of kilometers of open ocean in every direction.
That area has been used for decades for the controlled reentry of spacecraft, satellites, and space stations at the end of their operational life, precisely because it minimizes the risk of any surviving debris falling over an inhabited area. A direct historical precedent is the Russian station Mir, which was deliberately deorbited in 2001, with its remains falling in that very same region of the Pacific.
💡 Fun fact: Point Nemo is so remote that, at certain moments, astronauts flying over it aboard the ISS itself are physically closer to that debris field than any human being standing on dry land.
What comes next? Commercial space stations
Retiring the ISS doesn't mean the end of a permanent human presence in low Earth orbit. Before the current station shuts down for good, several private commercial stations are expected to come online, largely driven by NASA's program to encourage orbital platforms operated by private companies rather than directly by government agencies.
The underlying idea is that NASA and its international partners stop operating their own stations and instead become just one of the customers leasing space, crew time, and research capacity on facilities run by private companies. That shift would free up more of the agency's resources for more ambitious goals, such as its Moon exploration programs and, further down the road, Mars.
Why the ISS can't simply be left drifting in orbit
It might sound tempting to think you could just stop operating the station, power it down, and leave it floating indefinitely in space. In practice, that isn't a safe option. Even though low Earth orbit sits well above the dense atmosphere, trace amounts of atmospheric gas still create tiny but constant drag, and that drag gradually slows down anything in low orbit, year after year.
Without periodic engine burns to maintain its altitude — something the ISS itself still needs regularly today — a structure of that size would keep losing altitude until it reentered the atmosphere in an uncontrolled, unpredictable way. That would create a real risk of large fragments falling over inhabited areas, on top of generating additional space debris if the breakup happened chaotically in orbit. For all these reasons, and because of the shared international responsibility of the agencies that built the station, the plan has always been a deliberate, controlled deorbit rather than passive abandonment.
Frequently asked questions
When will the ISS be retired?
The partner agencies have planned a gradual retirement toward the end of the 2020s or the start of the 2030s, once the station passes 30 years of service life on its earliest modules. The exact date may still shift depending on the station's technical condition and how far along its commercial successors are.
What will happen to the station's remains?
Most of the structure will break apart from atmospheric friction during reentry, and any surviving fragments will fall in a controlled way over a remote stretch of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo, historically used as a spacecraft graveyard.
What will replace the ISS?
Its replacement is expected to come from private commercial stations backed by NASA's low Earth orbit stations program, designed to maintain a permanent human presence and scientific research in near-Earth space.
Why can't the ISS just be left floating in space?
Such a large, uncontrolled structure would keep losing altitude due to residual atmospheric drag and would reenter unpredictably, creating risk for inhabited areas and adding dangerous debris for other satellites. That's why agencies prefer a controlled, planned deorbit instead.
Want to know who's living on board right now?
See the current ISS crew