Even defunct spacecraft need a final resting place. For the Russian space station Mir and hundreds of other spacecraft from the US, Russia, Europe and Japan, this cemetery is located around the remote Point Nemo in the South Pacific, east of New Zealand – and eventually the International Space Station will be buried there too. According to Quartz, SpaceX plans to bring the 495-ton space station to a splashdown in the cosmically designed cemetery in 2030, where it will rest on the sea floor along with the remains of the Mir and many other spacecraft, in the only place on Earth farthest from any land.

In 2022, NASA released an update to its transition plan for the ISS, in which the space station will undergo “deorbit” maneuvers to be returned to Earth’s atmosphere, followed by its final burial at sea. Last year, the BBC reported that over 260 space objects crashed at Point Nemo between 1971 and 2018, and the remains are likely in better condition than one would expect. The outlet notes that “the waters around Point Nemo are considered the most lifeless on Earth” as they are “far from land, which tends to leach nutrients into the oceans. This, combined with the deep sea’s natural lack of oxygen, frigid temperatures, and total lack of sunlight, creates ideal conditions – and reduces the rate of chemical processes like rust formation.”

Quartz notes that this makes Point Nemo uniquely suited to serve as a spaceship graveyard, a possible “treasure trove for archaeologists in the distant future, much as sunken sailing ships from centuries past are prized today.” And as for the International Space Station, which was launched in 1998, it will soon find its way there once its “operational life” ends in a few years, according to US News and World Report. This channel provides more information on the deorbiting process, the other options for the ISS that were rejected, and why it is being put out of its misery in the first place. (More stories about the International Space Station.)