Will be SpaceX to bring the International Space Station back to Earth. Elon Musk’s company has won the tender announced by NASA. Total cost of the operation: almost a billion dollars. To the complex operation of deorbit of the ISS only a few years left: the space agency has set it for 2030.
There will not be another International Space Station. Or at least, not financed directly by space agencies: the baton will almost certainly pass to some private initiatives, such as Orbital Reef, the space station announced by Blue Origin.
An $848 million contract
SpaceX will have the delicate and complex task of carrying out the deorbiting of the ISS. The space station will be guided towards the Earth’s atmosphere where, at a speed of approximately 27,000 km/h, it will disintegrate on impact. The expected compensation? 848 million dollars: not too far from that billion that NASA had predicted as a budget not too many months ago. It is currently unclear whether the costs of the deorbiting the other agencies cooperating in the project will also participate. In total, there are five: CSA (Canadian Space Agency), ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), NASA and Roscosmos (Russian State Space Corporation).
Ken Bowersoxassociate administrator for the Space Operations Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that “the selection of a Space Vehicle Deorbiting 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.”
The ISS’s final journey to Point Nemo
While SpaceX will develop the deorbiting shuttle, NASA will take possession of it after development and operate it throughout the mission. Along with the space station, the vehicle is expected to be destroyed during the reentry process.
The elaborate plan to destroy the ISS involves a complex sequence of maneuvers. After a gradual orbital decline, the station will reach 400 kilometers above Earth, where a custom-built vehicle, connected to the station, initiates orbital descent. Once it reaches a height of 200 kilometers, the trajectory will be adjusted again so as to minimize its stay in the densest regions of the atmosphere, thus minimizing the risk of creating potentially dangerous debris. With one last thrust of propulsion, the ISS will reach its destination: Point Nemoin the Pacific Ocean, between New Zealand and Chile.
Not a point chosen at random, of course: it is the most remote point from any emerged land, with an average distance from the nearest coasts of around 2,700km. The site already hosts the remains of numerous other space artifacts.
