Elon Musk Thinks ISS Has Served Its Purpose And Should Be Deorbited, But Sunita Williams Says It Is Still At Its Prime: 'This Place Is Ticking. It's Just Really Amazing'

Astronaut Sunita Williams said on Tuesday that the International Space Station (ISS) is at its “prime” and right now would probably not be the right time to deorbit it, contrary to the opinions of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

What Happened: “…this place is ticking. It’s just really amazing. So I would say we’re actually in our prime right now. We’ve got all the power, all of the facilities up and operating,” Williams said in a live on Tuesday from ISS.

Williams said that now may not be the right time to deorbit the station and choosing to deorbit the station around 2030 as planned would be ideal.

“I think that’s probably really accurate, because we should make the most of this space station for our taxpayers and for all of our international partners, and hold our obligations and do that world-class science that this laboratory is capable of,” she said.

Williams has been up at the station since June and is slated to return to Earth as early as later this month.

Musk’s Take: Musk in February opined that preparations must start already for deorbiting ISS.

"It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility," Musk said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "Let's go to Mars," the billionaire said, calling for a human-operated base on Mars instead of the low Earth orbit.

"The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible," Musk said while also recommending that the station be deorbited two years from now, or in 2027.

Why It Matters: The ISS is operated by space agencies from the U.S., Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia. All countries except Russia have committed to operating the station until 2030. The station has spent about 25 years in orbit and over 270 astronauts have visited it to date.

NASA chose SpaceX to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit vehicle (USDV) to deorbit the space station and ensure a lack of risk to populated areas in late June. SpaceX will develop the deorbit spacecraft under the contract valued at $843 million and NASA will take ownership afterward and operate it through the mission.

The space agency previously said that the deorbit spacecraft would move the station out of orbit and into a remote area of an ocean at the end of its operations around 2030.

Both the spacecraft and the station are expected to break up through the process of re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Any remnants will subsequently fall harmlessly into the ocean as part of the plan.

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