WASHINGTON — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said that NASA should deorbit the International Space Station “as soon as possible,” preferably in the next two years, to focus on missions to Mars.
The sudden call by Musk to end the ISS years earlier than NASA currently plans, made on social media Feb. 20, threatens to further complicate the relationship between Musk, a close adviser to President Donald Trump, and the space agency and much of the space industry.
“It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station,” Musk posted on X, the social media site he owns. “It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars.”
Asked to clarify if that meant deorbiting the ISS sooner than 2030, NASA’s current date for retiring the station, Musk said it should come down in two years. “The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now,” he posted.
The comments, and the influence Musk currently wields in the administration, threaten to throw a wrench in NASA’s ISS transition plans. Those plans call for operating the station to 2030, by which time the agency expects at least one commercial space station to be ready do that NASA can continue the research and technology development activities it currently conducts on the ISS.
As part of that effort, NASA awarded a $843 million contract to SpaceX in June 2024 to develop a spacecraft called the United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), based on the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The USDV would dock with the station and handle the final maneuvers needed to deorbit the station over a desolate area of the South Pacific to minimize any risk of damage or injury to the public.
The spacecraft would launch to the station about a year before the planned deorbiting. In the procurement of the USDV, NASA stated its preference to have the USDV delivered for launch as soon as August 2028 with a requirement that it be delivered no later than May 2029. It is unclear if development of the USDV could be accelerated to meet Musk’s goal of a 2027 deorbit.
An early deorbit would also complicate relationships with both other companies and organizations involved with the ISS and commercial space station successors as well as the station’s international partners, who have committed to participating on the ISS to 2030 except for Russia, which has so far announced its intent be a part of the station to 2028.
One particular issue is that an early ISS deorbit would almost certainly mean a gap in permanent U.S. human presence in low Earth orbit. That is the stated goal of NASA’s LEO Microgravity Strategy released in December, which backed what it called “continuous heartbeat,” or having people in orbit continuously. NASA has previously discussed having an overlap between the ISS and commercial stations to allow for an orderly transition of research and equipment.
There are doubts in the industry whether any commercial space station could be ready by 2030, which could force NASA to either accept a gap or further extend the station. Station developers, though, remain confident, with Vast recently outlining plans for a permanently-crewed station it projects to be ready before 2030 while Axiom updated its plans in December for a station that could support crews as soon as 2028.
Key members of Congress reiterated last week their desire to maintain a continuous U.S. presence in LEO. “Abandoning LEO in some well-intentioned but misguided effort to focus only on the moon or only on Mars would only allow China to fill that void, driving a wedge between the United States and our partners,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said at the Commercial Space Conference Feb. 12. “That’s a path that we’re not going to take.”
He said then that the ISS should continue to operate until commercial successors are ready. “We’ve invested more than $100 billion into the International Space Station, and it would be exceptionally foolhardy to prematurely send all that infrastructure and all those tax dollars to the bottom of the ocean.”
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science Committee, offered similar comments at the conference. “The International Space Station is a technological marvel without any question, and it served us well for many decades,” he said. “We must give careful thought to how both the International Space Station and upcoming commercial platforms will play a role in accomplishes the United States’ objectives in low Earth orbit.”
It is not certain what caused Musk to call for an early end for the ISS. SpaceX is a major company supporting operations of the station, providing the primary means for NASA astronauts to get to and from the station as well as transporting cargo.
However, Musk’s comments came a few hours after he lashed out at European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who went the station on the Crew-7 mission, using a Crew Dragon, from August 2023 to March 2024. Mogensen, in a post on X early Feb. 20, criticized Musk for comments made in a television interview Feb. 18 claiming that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were left on the ISS for political reasons by the Biden administration. Neither Musk nor others have provided any evidence to support that allegation. “What a lie,” Mogensen wrote.
“Idiot,” Musk responded, using even harsher language in the post to describe Mogensen. Musk claimed that SpaceX offered to bring back Williams and Wilmore sooner but that the Biden administration refused. He did not provide any additional information about that proposal, which neither he nor SpaceX, as well as NASA and the former Biden administration, had previously disclosed.
Less than two and a half hours after his response to Mogensen, Musk posted his call for an early deorbiting of the ISS.
