Elon Musk is pushing to speed up plans to take down the International Space Station (ISS), arguing that its usefulness has run its course. SpaceX was awarded an $843 million contract to de-orbit the ISS by 2030, but Musk has made it clear he thinks the process should happen much sooner. His reasoning? It’s time to move on from low Earth orbit and focus on colonizing Mars.
Taking to social media, Musk stated, “It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars.” When a user asked if he was suggesting de-orbiting before 2030, Musk responded that while the final decision rests with the U.S. government, his recommendation is to bring the ISS down within two years.
NASA’s official plan is to gradually lower the ISS’s altitude over an 18-month period after its operations officially end. A modified SpaceX Dragon spacecraft—equipped with extra fuel and thruster power—will attach to the station and push it into the Earth’s atmosphere, where most of it will burn up. The remaining debris is set to fall into a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean.
The ISS, launched in 1998, was a collaborative effort between NASA, Roscosmos, and other international space agencies. Originally costing $150 billion to build—equivalent to about $292 billion today—it has been a hub for scientific research for over two decades. While many see it as a historic achievement, Musk sees it as an outdated stepping stone on humanity’s path to becoming a multi-planetary species.
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