Washington – An experienced NASA astronaut from the International Space Station believes that the convenience of the orbit may be well operated by its employed 2030 retirement date – and he will not feel like another journey there.
Don Petit returned to a Soyuz spacecraft on 19 April (US Time), which completed his third long -term campaign at the station. He spent 220 days in space on this flight and logged in his career in a 590 -day orbit in his career, only behind Pagi Whitson and listened to Williams between American astronauts.
Most of those 590 days were spent on ISS on three campaigns spread in the life of the station: 2002-2003, 2011-2012 and 2024-2025. The ISS has changed a lot since the first mission, when the station was still in the early stages of the assembly.
“It’s like living in your home when you’re trying to make it,” he said about his latest mission about that first ISS mission at the press conference on 28 April. “NASA was still learning to run the space station.”
“Now, the space station is a well -oil machine,” he said, citing too much capabilities and resources to stay there and do research. “We are as efficient as we are ever working at the space station, taking seven people occupying the mission work.”
NASA plans to retire the ISS in the late decade as it turns into commercial space stations, but Petit argued that there was no technical reason for the end of the ISS. He said, “I have a firm belief that we do not need to dump the space station in the sea in 2030, if we do not want,” he argued, compared to the B -52 bomber, which remains in service despite the aircraft being final more than 60 years ago.
He said, “There is no limit to what we can do for the space station, except our will and to be the necessary wealth to do it,” he said, such as the ongoing work to increase the original solar arrays of the station with new ones that are small but more efficient.
He said, “As long as we want, we can keep the station operational.” “This is my opinion.”
The opinion collides with NASA’s security panel, which recently warned of increasing risks for ISS as it is age. “The ISS has entered the most risky period of its existence,” said Rich Williams, a member of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, at the committee’s 17 April meeting. He cited concerns about the cracks in a Russian module, uncertain about ISS doorbit plans and constrained budget.
The desire to keep the ISS of Petit also struggles with the desire of the industry to determine the retirement date, along with the ongoing efforts to transfer NASA to the commercial stations of NASA.
Petit said in briefing that it was recovering well with its latest long -term spacecraft. He did not look well because he was taken out of Soyuz SpaceCraft, and the Russian video crew on the landing site then took his small footage. He said, “I didn’t feel very good because I didn’t like it,” he said, “Emptying my stomach contents”.
“For someone like me, coming back to Earth has always been an important challenge,” he said, which he blamed for his physiology. “You go with the flow, you do what your trainers tell you, you do what your flight dox tells you, and on the other side you pop on one earth once again.”
At the age of 70 on April 20, Petit said that he was not interested in retiring. “I am ready to go back when the flying docks say I am ready to go back,” he said. “I have some more good years left. I can see another flight or two inside.”
