“[The station] is the cornerstone of space commerce, from commercial crew and cargo partnerships to commercial research and national lab research, and lessons learned aboard International Space Station are helping to pass the torch to future commercial stations,” NASA said.
Once all crew have safely returned to Earth, and after performing small maneuvers to line up the final target ground track and debris footprint over an uninhabited region of the ocean, space station operators will command a large re-entry burn, providing the final push to ensure safe atmospheric entry into the target footprint,” the agency said.
“The safe deorbit of the International Space Station is the responsibility of all five space agencies,” NASA said last June.
In many ways, the space station helped lead to the formation of SpaceX and the commercial space agency, which NASA has supported.
While the U.S., Japan, Canada and the participating countries of European Space Agency had committed to operating the station through 2030, Russia had only committed to continue operations through at least 2028.
