got geoint?

All good things must eventually come to an end, as they say. For the International Space Station (ISS), it seems that it may ultimately meet its final destination in 2020. According to the AFP, the ISS will be plunged into the ocean at the end of its operable life in 2020. Why bring the ISS back down to Earth? The reason is very simple: the multinational partnership overseeing the ISS does not want to add to the world of space junk already floating around in near space.

We all know that space debris is becoming a major issue for satellite operators and other organizations that have high-value assets in space. It’s so much of a problem that space junk has started to randomly land on Earth. Thankfully the Air Force is tracking much of this debris, but the reality is that space is a crowded place.

In February 2009, the first publicly known satellite collision actually happened. A privately owned U.S. Iridium satellite collided with the Russian military’s defunct Cosmos 2251 satellite, which created a cloud of debris that could have threaten the safety of other orbiting objects.

And a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that a piece of space debris traveling 29,000 miles per hour passed dangerously nearby the ISS itself.

Though for those of you who are already mourning the end of the ISS, PC Magazine stated that NASA could potentially extend its mission to 2028. And in the meantime, there are discussions about moving the ISS beyond low earth orbit. Next targets are Mars, the Moon, or to an actual asteroid.

Tags: End of the ISS, got geoint?, International Space Station, ISS to plunge into the ocean, satellites and space debris, space debris, Space Junk