The International Space Station has hosted astronauts continuously for more than two decades, but it will not orbit forever. NASA and its partners plan to operate the station through 2030 and then bring it down in a carefully controlled plunge into a remote stretch of ocean. The key piece of hardware for that final act is the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, a heavily modified SpaceX Dragon. Here is how the ISS retirement plan works, why NASA chose it, and what happens in the station's last months, based on NASA's own documents as of October 2026.
Why the ISS Has to Come Down
The station is enormous. NASA puts its mass at more than 945,000 pounds (about 430,000 kg). At its operating altitude, thin traces of atmosphere slowly drag it down, which is why it gets regular reboosts. If those reboosts stopped, NASA's deorbit analysis says the station would fall back naturally within roughly one to two years, and nobody could predict exactly where surviving debris would land.
NASA studied several alternatives before settling on a controlled reentry:
- Disassemble and bring it home: The station was built over 13 years using 27 Space Shuttle flights and 161 spacewalks. Its modules were never designed to come apart easily, and no current vehicle has a cargo bay like the Shuttle's.
- Boost it to a higher orbit: Current crew and cargo vehicles are optimized for the station's present altitude, and higher orbits carry a much greater risk of debris strikes. The station would also eventually come back down uncontrolled.
- Reuse or donate modules: NASA says an industry request for information turned up no viable interest in reusing the major components.
- Let it fall on its own: An uncontrolled reentry of something this large would scatter heavy debris over a wide, unpredictable area.
Meet the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle
NASA originally expected Russian Progress cargo ships to provide the final push. Its analysis concluded that Progress propulsion would not provide enough margin to meet the U.S. public-safety standard, which limits the risk of a casualty to 1 in 10,000. So in 2023 NASA asked American industry for proposals, and in June 2024 it selected SpaceX under a contract worth up to $843 million to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV).
According to Spaceflight Now's reporting on the contract, the USDV is a custom spacecraft based on Dragon, with an extended trunk packed with propellant and many more Draco thrusters than a standard capsule. SpaceX said it needs about six times the usable propellant of today's Dragon and three to four times the power generation and storage. NASA will own and operate the vehicle once delivered. At the time of the award, the rocket that would launch it had not yet been chosen.
The Final Months, Step by Step
The plan blends natural orbital decay, engine burns from vehicles already at the station and a final push from the USDV. Based on the reporting and NASA's description, the sequence looks like this:
- Arrival: The USDV launches and docks to the station roughly a year and a half before reentry.
- Crew departs: The last crew leaves while the station continues to descend gradually.
- Lowering: Drag and propulsion bring the station down toward a lower staging altitude.
- Setup burns: The USDV performs a series of burns to line up the final approach.
- Final burn: A last, long reentry burn drops the station into the atmosphere over a remote, uninhabited ocean area.
What Happens During Reentry
NASA expects the station to break apart in stages. The large, light structures such as solar arrays and radiators should tear away first, followed by the separation of modules and truss segments, and finally the fragmentation of individual modules. Most of the hardware will burn up. Denser pieces, such as parts of the truss, may survive and fall into the ocean. NASA's environmental review found no substantial long-term impacts expected from the debris settling on the sea floor.
The deorbit is a shared responsibility of the five partner agencies: NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos. Russian propulsion and attitude control are expected to keep working through the lowering phase, while the USDV supplies the decisive final push. If you follow station logistics, our story on SpaceX CRS-35 and the station's final solar upgrade shows how the ISS is still being supplied and improved in its later years.
What Comes After the ISS
NASA does not want a gap in American presence in low Earth orbit. Its stated goal is to become one customer among many on privately owned commercial space stations, freeing budget and attention for missions to the Moon and Mars. NASA has backed commercial station efforts through funded agreements and a contract for a commercial module that attaches to the ISS. Some smaller station artifacts are also expected to be preserved with help from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
As of October 2026, the overall target remains the same: full use of the station through 2030, followed by a controlled deorbit. Exact dates could still shift with budgets, commercial station readiness and partner decisions.
Conclusion
Retiring the ISS is a major engineering task in its own right. Too big to bring home and too risky to leave in orbit or let fall at random, the station will end its life with a precisely timed burn from a supercharged Dragon. It is a fitting finale for one of humanity's greatest cooperative projects, and a sign that low Earth orbit is about to enter a more commercial era.