Opinion: Why The U.S. Needs To Harness The Power Of The ISS

NASA’s plan for the meteoric destruction of the International Space Station could easily become a viral meme that the space community does not need and the agency might never outlive.

Is this how humankind’s arguably greatest technological accomplishment during international peacetime should be remembered, like a discarded toy? At a time when space exploration seems increasingly like a luxury hobby of a remote elite, why destroy a symbol of intergovernmental cooperation?

Another outcome is possible—one that would be pathfinding.

The International Space Station (ISS) has the largest power system in space. Its upgraded, state-of-the-art solar arrays produce almost 0.25 megawatts in full sunlight. The entire system—arrays, multiaxial tracking, batteries, and high-power management and distribution—solves two hard, coupled orbital problems: 45-min. eclipses and seasonally variable sun angle. The station averages 100 kW continuously, four times more than today’s most powerful commercial geostationary satellites.

NASA recently awarded SpaceX an $843 million contract to deorbit the ISS. Instead, NASA could boost it higher through the two debris bands at 600-1,100 km (373-684 mi.) and 1,300-1,550 km above Earth. Then high-efficiency electric propulsion could raise it as far as geostationary orbit (GEO) using the onboard power and NASA’s high-power NExT electric thruster (which has never had a mission).

Why undertake such a seemingly crazy operation? It would not be reasonable just to avoid a bad viral moment or to flight-test the NExT thruster. NASA should do it because the ISS’s electricity generation can give it a second life as an uncrewed test platform for space-based solar power (SBSP).

We have known for decades that solar energy collected in space can be transmitted to Earth’s surface, theoretically unlocking unlimited clean energy. Whoever scales the technology could become the world’s dominant energy exporter. This is why China’s SBSP program has a midcentury timeline. Japan, the U.K and U.S. have dabbled in the technology, but there is no strategic, collaborative, Western program. Instead, we obsess over going to the Moon and Mars.

Making SBSP work on an industrial scale is a big challenge that requires enormous amounts of heavy-lift launch, assembly and control of thousands of hectares of gossamer photovoltaic and microwave transmitter arrays, and economic competitiveness. These are problems of engineering scale, space operations, energy economics and public-private partnerships. Someone has to make the businesses case, and that is where the ISS comes in, showing what is possible and unlocking the private and government funding to develop SBSP.

The station has several big advantages over hypothetical purpose-built test platforms. It offers ample infrastructure with a huge power system, extensive structure and habitability for visiting crews. Because it exists, the ISS would provide a focus to development efforts, driving speed.

Here is a three-phase program that NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy should study in 2025:

Phase One Before the ISS is decommissioned, crews prepare it for its testbed life by installing microwave transmitters, propulsion systems and provisions for robotic servicing. The station transmits intermittent power to ground rectennas (the receivers that convert microwave energy into current), acclimating people to “power from the sky.” The U.S. invites countries in the global south to participate by building their own rectennas.

Phase Two After ending its microgravity research, NASA lifts the ISS to GEO. In the process, it characterizes SBSP behavior at progressively higher altitudes as ground rectennas proliferate, and it demonstrates the feeding of received power into terrestrial grids.

Phase Three Once near GEO, the ISS testbed slowly drifts eastward in the sky, beaming power to collaborating recipients across the world. It establishes the real economics of SBSP—the all-important dollars-per-kilowatt-delivered metric. Designs for practical GEO solar stations are finalized, and commercial launch and deployment providers bid for large-scale services contracts, likely hungrily.

Because space has limitless energy but Earth does not, SBSP’s time will come sooner or later. Why can’t the U.S. lead the world into energy abundance with a space program that once again delivers geopolitically transformative goals?

The ISS, an ultra-high-power platform already in orbit, built with our ingenuity, national treasure and allies, can jump-start this vision. Deorbiting it would be a waste of energy, literally and figuratively.