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It is planned to stay in orbit in its current form until at least 2020.

In principle it can stay in orbit as long as nothing breaks and there is money for flying people, supplies and fuel to it.

Fuel is important because there is still a little bit of air up there that causes it to drop back to earth very slowly, so every once in a while it either needs to fire its rocket engines or be "pushed" by a docked spacecraft like Progress or the Shuttle.

You also need people to look after it and fix parts that wear out or break.

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