Elon Musk’s SpaceX Wins Contract to Destroy International Space Station
Image source, POT
- Author, Jonathan Amos
- Role, BBC Science Correspondent
NASA has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX to decommission the International Space Station at the end of its life.
Early next decade, a California company will build a ship capable of moving the 430-ton platform orbiting our planet into the Pacific Ocean.
Contract, cost 843 million US dollars, This was announced this Wednesday.
The first elements of the International Space Station were launched into space in 1998, and manned flights began in 2000.
The station orbits the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of just over 400 km and has hosted thousands of scientific experiments that have examined everything from the aging process of humans to the formulas for new types of materials.
Engineers say the lab’s structure remains the same quite durablebut what plans must be developed to eliminate it permanently. Without any intervention, the platform will eventually fall to Earth on its own, posing a significant risk to the planet’s population.
“Selecting a lander for the International Space Station will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition to low-Earth orbit when the station ends,” said Ken Bowersox, the organization’s director of space operations.
The US and Russia head the ISS. Europe, Canada and Japan play a minor role. Western countries agreed to finance the station until 2030; Russia says its participation will last until at least 2028.
Image source, POT
NASA has explored several options for disposing of the space platform at the end of its service life; including dismantling the station and using its youngest elements on a new generation platform. Another idea was to simply hand it over to a commercial company to operate and maintain it.
But all these decisions entail various complications both in complexity and cost. And there is also a legal problem associated with the resolution of property issues.
Neither NASA nor SpaceX have disclosed details of the design of the “tug” that will carry the International Space Station out of orbit, but it it will take a significant boost safely direct it into the atmosphere at the right place and time.
The large mass and length of the platform (it is roughly the size of a football field) means that some structures and components will survive the heat of reentry and fall back to the planet.
Controllers will allow the International Space Station’s orbit to decay naturally over a period of time and, once the last crew is removed, they will command the tug to carry out the mission. final deorbit maneuver.
The space junk will be directed to a remote location known as the Pacific Pole of Inaccessibility, or Point Nemo.
Named after the famous submariner from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, it is located more than 2,500 km from the nearest landmass.
NASA hopes that by the time the International Space Station disappears from the sky, several private consortia will have launched commercial space stations.
The focus of space agencies will shift to a project to create a platform called Gateway, which will be launched into lunar orbit.
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