SpaceX wins contract to destroy the International Space Station

Under the new contract with NASA, SpaceX will build a vehicle called the US Deorbit to push the ISS into Earth’s atmosphere while avoiding risks to populated areas. NASA will take ownership of the vehicle and handle the operation of bringing the space station into the atmosphere.

The International Space Station's aging components have prompted NASA and its foreign partners to set 2030 as the planned "retirement" date. Photo: NASA

The football-field-sized International Space Station, which is mainly manned by the United States and Russia, has been home to astronauts for the past 24 years. However, aging components of the ISS have led NASA and its foreign partners to decide to retire it in 2030.

The United States, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency nations have committed to cooperating on the space station until 2030, while Russia has agreed to remain a partner until 2028, when the Russian space agency Roscosmos believes its hardware will be viable.

Scientific cooperation on the ISS, which orbits about 400 kilometers above Earth, has survived years of geopolitical conflict on Earth, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict — an event that ended nearly all cooperative relations between Russia and the Western world.

The US-Russia alliance is largely technical, with Russian thrusters maintaining the station's orbital altitude and US solar arrays powering the station.

Those Russian thrusters were originally intended to push the ISS into Earth's atmosphere when it's decommissioned. But in recent years, NASA has been looking into ways to push the space station into the atmosphere on its own if Russia leaves the alliance sooner than planned.

Hoai Phuong (according to Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/spacex-gianh-duoc-hop-dong-pha-huy-tram-vu-tru-quoc-te-post301074.html