NASA has chosen SpaceX to design a specialized spacecraft tasked with the controlled de-orbiting of the International Space Station (ISS) in the year 2030. This significant contract, which could be worth up to $843 million, was publicly disclosed by the space agency on a recent Wednesday.
The ISS, which has been a cornerstone of international space collaboration, is approaching the conclusion of its service life. As the era of the ISS winds down, there is a growing focus on the development of new space stations owned and operated by private entities. In preparation for this transition, the ISS will need to be safely decommissioned and removed from orbit at the end of this decade.
NASA has revealed only limited information about the spacecraft, referred to as the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle. It is important to note that this vehicle will be distinct from SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which is currently used for transporting both cargo and astronauts to the ISS, as well as from other spacecraft that provide various services to the agency. A key difference is that, following its development by SpaceX, NASA will assume ownership and control of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, overseeing its operation during the mission.
One of the critical challenges that SpaceX will face is ensuring that the ISS’s re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere is conducted in such a manner that it poses no risk to populated areas. Both the ISS and the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle are expected to be destroyed upon atmospheric re-entry.
The procurement process for launching the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle into space will be handled through a separate contract, which has yet to be announced. Prior to selecting SpaceX for this mission, NASA and its international partners had considered employing a Russian Roscosmos Progress spacecraft for the de-orbit task. However, subsequent analyses suggested that a newly designed spacecraft would be more suitable for executing the de-orbit maneuver.
The responsibility for the ISS’s safe deconstruction is a collective one, shared among the five space agencies that operate the station: NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the State Space Corporation Roscosmos. It remains to be clarified whether the funding for this contract will be contributed by all these partner countries.
