The ISS just turned 25, but its future days are numbered

This week, NASA celebrated the International Space Station’s 25th birthday – even as the space agency is preparing to give it the Old Yeller treatment.

Some quick background: The ISS is a joint project involving five space agencies, who collectively have spent $150+ billion to construct and operate the football field-sized station. It’s been continuously occupied for more than 23 years by astronauts from nearly two dozen countries, and has hosted 3,300+ scientific experiments.

But the status quo won’t last for much longer. The ISS is currently set to retire in 2030 and be deorbited into the ocean the following year in a fiery ball of flames. NASA has signed agreements with four private space companies to replace the ISS with commercial stations, though the projects are in early stages of development. Officials say NASA will continue to use the ISS if no other options are available by the end of the decade.

📸 Big picture: China – which was banned from the ISS in 2011 – completed its Tiangong space station late last year, Russia is aiming to launch the first module of its own space station by 2027, and India says it will do the same by 2028.