It’s no secret that the International Space Station has an expiration date. The only variable is how it will be brought down to Earth. NASA has already selected SpaceX for the mission and is paying the company $843 million to return the ISS safely.
SpaceX, a private space company owned by Elon Musk, will use the money from the NASA contract to build a deorbit vehicle. NASA will then select a contractor to launch this vehicle into space to board the ISS. The final step in the plan is for the vehicle to slowly deorbit the ISS in such a way that it falls back to Earth in an uninhabited area where it can be safely extracted without harming anyone.
SpaceX said it was “honored to trust NASA to support this critical mission,” in a post Wednesday on X.
“The selection of an American deorbit vehicle for the International Space Station will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition to low Earth orbit at the end of station operations,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters, it said in a statement. “The Orbiting Laboratory remains a blueprint for science, research and partnerships in space for the benefit of all.”
NASA says a second contract will be awarded in the future to launch the deorbiter into space once it is built. Since SpaceX has quite a bit of experience launching things into space — like satellites to provide broadband and manned missions to the ISS — it’s possible the company could get that contract, too.
When is the ISS scheduled to return to Earth?
The ISS is slated to retire in 2030, which is when it should return to Earth. Will be busy until retirement. NASA plans to commercialize the space station this decade to allow companies to use it before it is retired. (The ultimate goal is for private companies to have installations in low Earth orbit that don’t have to be maintained by NASA.)
Otherwise, the ISS lived a full life. Construction missions began in 1998, and the ISS has been continuously serviced for the past 22 years.
Why is the ISS deorbiting?
NASA says the structure’s ultimate life is due to thermal cycling; wear and tear from docking and undocking spacecraft; and other factors.
In short, NASA says that after 2030, the ISS simply won’t be safe enough for humans to be there.
How will the space station be brought down?
It’s simpler than you think. According to NASA, the American deorbit vehicle, which is being built by SpaceX, will dock with the ISS. From there, the vehicle will use its propulsion system to push the ISS into a lower orbit.
Drag from Earth’s atmosphere will then take over and bring the ISS back to Earth. The controlled de-orbit procedure will be calculated so that the ISS debris falls into the ocean where it cannot harm anyone.
Why does NASA use a deorbit vehicle?
Other potential methods of getting the ISS out of space are either too difficult, too expensive, or both. NASA is considering deconstructing the ISS and putting it back together piece by piece. However, the agency says that initial assembly took NASA 27 flights, and that disassembly could take even longer because the ISS is more difficult to deconstruct than to build.
Another option was to raise it to a higher orbit so it could join the Great Garbage Patch that already exists in space. NASA says the problem with this approach is that it would take too much fuel to lift the massive space station into a “graveyard orbit.” The ISS’s current capabilities could increase its orbit slightly, but it will remain in low Earth orbit without additional, expensive assistance.
The third option considered was to just let it fall out of space on its own. Of course, the problem there is pretty self-explanatory: if the ISS falls out of space on its own, NASA won’t be able to control where it lands. This means it could land in a populated area and harm people.
