NASA awards SpaceX $843 million contract to de-orbit ISS
NASA today announced that it has awarded SpaceX a $843 million contract to build a de-orbit spacecraft that can dock to ISS and fire its thrusters so that the station will be safely de-orbited when it is retired in 2030, burning up over the ocean.
While the company will develop the deorbit spacecraft, NASA will take ownership after development and operate it throughout its mission. Along with the space station, it is expected to destructively breakup as part of the re-entry process.
The announcement provided no other details. It is not clear whether the thrusters on a Dragon capsule would be sufficient for this task. Most likely not, which means SpaceX will have to develop something else to do the job. Maybe its bid proposed using a Starship for the task.
It is also not clear whether any modules on ISS will be salvaged for other uses before de-orbit. The modules that the commercial company Axiom plans to attach to ISS in the next year or so are supposed to undock to form its own independent space station sometime later this decade. Will Russia’s modules do the same? And will any other modules?
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NASA today announced that it has awarded SpaceX a $843 million contract to build a de-orbit spacecraft that can dock to ISS and fire its thrusters so that the station will be safely de-orbited when it is retired in 2030, burning up over the ocean.
While the company will develop the deorbit spacecraft, NASA will take ownership after development and operate it throughout its mission. Along with the space station, it is expected to destructively breakup as part of the re-entry process.
The announcement provided no other details. It is not clear whether the thrusters on a Dragon capsule would be sufficient for this task. Most likely not, which means SpaceX will have to develop something else to do the job. Maybe its bid proposed using a Starship for the task.
It is also not clear whether any modules on ISS will be salvaged for other uses before de-orbit. The modules that the commercial company Axiom plans to attach to ISS in the next year or so are supposed to undock to form its own independent space station sometime later this decade. Will Russia’s modules do the same? And will any other modules?
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Well, that’s a relief. No more “Skylab 2.0” to worry about.
The original de-orbit plan, as I understand it, was to use a pair of Progress freighters to do the job. The demonstrated fragility of the Russian segment of ISS now makes that an increasingly questionable plan. Not to mention that the Russo-Ukraine War is showing the entire Russian state to be increasingly fragile as well. There is a non-trivial chance there will no longer be a Russian state left to provide either the notional pair of Progress craft nor their launchers by the time the currently planned splash date in 2030 rolls around.
As to whatever one-time-use gimcrack SpaceX comes up with to put “Old Yeller” down when the time comes, I suspect anything Starship-based would prove too big and powerful to safely serve. I think it will be based on past and/or current Dragon tech, especially thrusters and attachment mechanisms. Plenty of time left for SpaceX and NASA to reveal the details in advance of deployment.
As to “saving” any major parts of ISS – other than the entire Axiom complex which is already planned for – that seems massively unlikely. During the Rogozin era at Roscosmos, there was a lot of loose talk about hiving off the Russian modules and repurposing them as the core of a new Mir-class station to be called ROS. I notice there has been little or no such talk since Rogozin was sacked. The Russians have moved on to entertaining other equally unachievable fantasies instead.
Saving any non-Russian modules for notional return to Earth and museum display looks almost equally unlikely. The expense of trying to do so would be considerable. The danger of making the attempt would also be considerable. I don’t see that happening.
Nor do I see any attempt at “saving” ISS in some notional higher “graveyard” orbit as sensible even if it was financially and logistically feasible – neither of which it is. ISS would simply be a fat 450-tonne target for random future debris object strikes, which would spall off still more debris objects or even break the station’s corpse up into two or more large pieces.
Moving said corpse to lunar or Martian orbit, as some who are obviously completely ignorant of orbital mechanics have naively suggested, is out for the same reasons. ISS is already pretty thoroughly worn out. By 2030, it will be even more so. Play taps, send the SpaceX robot headsman and give the thing a last fiery hurrah and decent burial at sea.
Much of the ISS is worn out, but some modules are not. My understanding is that those parts are intended to be taken off the ISS as part of the Axiom station when the rest is deorbited.