Surprise with the future 'resting place' of the International Space Station

ISS International Space Station will fall to Earth in 2028. But if it falls to the ground, will disaster happen?

You know, the golden era of space science began in October 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite - Sputnik 1 - into Earth's orbit. And so far, about 2000 satellites are operating.

So far, about 2000 satellites are operating.

But if we include debris from old, broken satellites - which we still call "cosmic garbage" - there are about 500,000 pieces floating in our orbit.

This universe of garbage can be super small, a few centimeters in size, or as big as a car. But what is the problem? The problem is that they can fall on our heads.

Gravity from Earth causes everything to rotate around it, but at the same time pulls it closer. At a certain point, the object will enter the atmosphere and fall straight to Earth.

ISS International Space Station.

Most of our cosmic garbage is small in size, so it is often burned by friction with the air. However, this rule is also true for larger objects, including the ISS International Space Station, which is about the size of a football field.

The space station as big as a football field will fall in 2028

Theoretically, just enough speed, the object will not lose more energy to maintain the trajectory. But in fact, current satellites, including ISS, have a relatively low orbit, which in turn will result in a gradual loss of energy by micro-atmospheric crystals.

By the time the ingredients are out, they will stop working, the speed will slow down and then fall to Earth.

That will be what happens to ISS. According to NASA calculations, the 500-ton International Space Station, as big as a football field, will fall to Earth in 2028. And you can imagine what would happen if it hit a wall. street .

The International Space Station weighs 500 tons.

But NASA will not let this happen, because they have already prepared a "resting place" for the ISS.

The final resting place of ISS

Located nearly 5,000km east of the coast of New Zealand, 3000km north of Antarctica, there is an area that is considered "far away from the mainland " , and it is chosen by NASA where ISS will land.

The reason is so obvious - NASA wants to minimize the damage when ISS landed.

"Tomb" of ISS and many other spacecraft.

The Pacific is not ISS's own "tomb" . So far, more than 263 spacecraft have fallen here, of which the most famous is Russia's Space Station - MIR - weighing 142 tons in 2001.

In order to put MIR safely in the grave, experts must carefully calculate it. This time, ISS is 4 times larger, enough to see that it requires extremely accurate calculations.

The falling ships were usually not intact, but would explode into pieces due to strong friction. So a cup is wrong . many miles, a disaster like playing.

To fall down to the residential area, the consequences are not good at all.

And how do they get these ships back to Earth without causing disaster? The answer is that they will not wait for them to automatically fall down, but actively take it down.

When the space station is too close orbit, 186km from Earth, experts will cut the energy, bring it down, then activate the final energy source, bring it into the atmosphere, straight down to the area. prepared area.