Ken Bowersox, head of NASA’s manned spaceflight directorate, stated on Friday that US scientists anticipate being able to employ a separate orbital station for research by the time the ISS ends its operation.
“The key things we have to have before we bring the space station back to Earth are – one – that the US orbit vehicle needs to be on board – and two – we’d like to have another station in place, so we can continue our work in low Earth orbit,” he said at a briefing for journalists. Bowersox did not clarify what station in particular he was speaking about.
He was responding to a request from a journalist to comment on a proposal by Elon Musk, the Space X founder who oversees the US government’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to deorbit the International Space Station and instead focus on preparing for a mission to Mars.
“Right now, we’re acting purely on policy guidance that we have in place, and that has us flying on ISS through 2030. That’s something that we’ve negotiated with all our international partners,” the expert stated. “Of course, our Russian partners still haven’t been able to get official approval to extend [the work at the ISS] past 2028 so we’re dealing with a little bit of uncertainty, officially, between 2028 and 2030.”
