A scientific man made marvel. The largest man made object in space, 800m long and 400m wide. Designed and assembled by space scientists from the US, Europe, Canada, Russia and Japan. A team of scientists/austronats visit the station and spend six months every time. But what is mind-blowing is the initial budget it gobbled:150 billion US dollars.
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I have been watching this mega structure from youtube. Marvellous
Truly marvellous.
Its ageing and will come down soon
When soonest?
Around 2025. Its actually loosing its orbit every day.
Source/link?
tracing back how one idea led to another is an exciting journey… from one physicist theorising on planetary orbits to guys sitting in a room asking, “Lol, what if we docked two ship, bro?”
Am watching it on Nat Geo right now. Amazing
Its not a today news, it has been there since then…afterall all space stations decay and fall.
I thought they keep repositioning it.
True but that is temporary. They keep on trying to extend its life but it won’t last forever
Wacha tuseme itaanguka wakiamua si ati ikishindwa kupepea.
Ni operational service yake ikifika they will destoy it. The ISS loses its orbit by 2km/month so maintenance muhimu. But kumbuka hii kitu inazunguka the earth in around 90 mins. Hapo obvious kutakuwa na wear and tear plus the solar panels haziwezi kuwa productive forever…
Term yake ikiisha tuite serikali tuimport hizo second hand spare parts, hizo more durable than new ones.
Ageing yes, coming down not really, at least it won’t come down due to ageing
the space station cannot lose orbit since it has thrusters for attitude control, just like all satelites
Expound kijana.
For geostationary satellites(and other mid orbit and low orbit sats) they carry some fuel and retain a small rocket engine which always thrusts to return a satellite to the designated orbit after some time. The fuel is normally enough to keep a geostationary satellite in the required orbit for 10 to 15 yrs(sometimes satellites outlives their lifespan) . In theory a satellite should remain in orbit for ever but in practice regions around the earth are not perfectly free of gaseous particles which somehow slows down the spacecraft. Also the gravitational pull which keeps the sat in orbit fluctuates with small amounts every time. For the space station maybe they should be replenishing it with fuel but maybe it is not feasible.
But once the fuel for the thrusters is exhausted that is normally the end of the satellite which will normally have to be fragmented.For the space station I presume that the only way to ensure it will remain in orbit for ever is to supply fuel for the thrusters from the other from time to time. That will happen if it is considered feasible. Or maybe there is wear and tear on the craft which also eliminates the possibility of the station being there for ever. Sometimes back I remember some engineers were doing some part replacement and it was very interesting.
Yes, true for satelites to come back down after thruster fuel is exhausted. For ISS, the whole thing was assembled in space, almost every single part can be repaired and replaced by astronauts doing Extra Vehacular Activity a.k.a spacewalks. The only constraint for ISS is funding… when that stops, that is when it will be retired. Currently, it is funded till 2024 but they are discussing extending funding to 2028. I imagine it will retire sometime in the near future and each of the superpowers will build own space stations since now they have the experience.