NASA and SpaceX to Use Modified Dragon Capsule to Destroy International Space Station

POT announced last month that he had chosen SpaceX build a spaceship that will be responsible for the destruction International Space StationThe ISS (abbreviation in English) is deorbiting it. The ISS will reach the end of its operational life 2030 year after more than three decades in space, and NASA plans to create a structure burn up safely on re-entry over the ocean. The US space agency has now said the deorbit ship will be modified Dragon capsule so that it has the necessary additional thrust to allow it to perform the de-orbit maneuver.

Aerospace company Elon Musk got a contract 843 million dollars to manufacture and deliver a modified Dragon to NASA. US launch vehicleUSDV (abbreviation in English), will be operated by the space agency and will have a total 46 Dragon Engines of which 16 will be dedicated to altitude control. The standard Dragon 2 capsule is equipped only 18 of them. USDV will carry six times more fuel than a standard Dragon, allowing it to reach thrust four times greaterThis means that it will correspond to more than half of the 30,000th launch mass of the ship. Your deposit will be twice as much as you have now..

The current plan calls for the ISS to be closed in 2030. The agency intends to launch the USDV simultaneously with the sending of the last crew to the International Space Station. After docking with the ISS, the crew will check out the ship and prepare the station for its final farewell. NASA will allow the station’s orbit to naturally descend from its usual 400 kilometers to 330 kilometers. In this case, The crew will leave the ISS and exit the USDV to complete their work.

Six months after the team left, USDV to Use Its Engines to Deorbit ISS. NASA intends to drop the ISS into the Earth’s atmosphere on a 2,000-kilometer stretch over the oceanMost objects in orbit are small enough to burn up completely upon re-entry into the atmosphere. but not the ISSNASA hopes that parts of the station will remain intact until they fall into the water; Some of these fragments can be as big as a car..

Since USDV is larger than the standard Dragon, NASA won’t be able to launch it with Falcon 9 currently transports Dragon capsules into space. The agency will have launch vehicle three years before the planned mission date.

The SpaceX Dragon is a reusable spacecraft developed by Musk’s company that was used for a decade, from 2010 to 2020, to replenish ISS suppliesIts successor, Dragon 2, has been in service since 2020 and has two versions: one for resupply missions, Cargo Dragon 2, and the other for transporting astronauts, Crew Dragon 2..