I wonder how long would take ISS do decay it's orbit and burn up if no one would boost it to it's proper orbit?

[Pawelk198604]

I wonder how long would take ISS to do decay it's orbit and burns up if no one would boost it to its proper orbit?

[GDJ]

Roughly?

The ISS would crash into the Earth after 6.95 years of having no fuel to perform reboosts from the average altitude of 365 km.

Edited December 15, 2018 by GDJ

[kerbiloid]

For Skylab it took 5 years to fall from 440 km.

[Nightside]

If you can come up with mass and surface area you can figure it here!

http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/lab/orbital_decay/

[radonek]

Could solar and cooling arrays be undeployed? That would reduce drag quite a bit. 

[YNM]

Yeah they can be retracted.

Would be even slower if we fill it with sand...

[cubinator]

13 hours ago, YNM said:

Would be even slower if we fill it with sand...

How ironic that making something heavier causes it to fall slower, in the right circumstances. It makes sense though - more inertia -> less acceleration from drag.

[Piatzin]

23 hours ago, GDJ said:

365 km.

I thought it was slightly over 400 but apparently 350-390 has been, historically, the more common range -__O

[YNM]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

making something heavier causes it to fall slower, in the right circumstances.

Well, Space has reverse buoyancy XD

[kerbiloid]

On 12/16/2018 at 3:05 AM, cubinator said:

How ironic that making something heavier causes it to fall slower, in the right circumstances. It makes sense though - more inertia -> less acceleration from drag.

Space is an abyss.
It sinks to space. It comes up to the Earth surface.
We live not on the floor but on the spherical ceiling, looking down to the sky.

Edited December 17, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Adstri]

It definitely wouldn't take long at all.

Exospheres are a pain the boosters.