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NASA has chosen SpaceX to build a spacecraft that will carry the International Space Station back through Earth’s atmosphere to its final resting place in the Pacific Ocean after it is retired in 2030. Elon Musk’s company was awarded a potentially $843 million contract on Tuesday to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle spacecraft.
“The selection of a U.S. 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 the station’s operations,” NASA’s Ken Bowersox said in a statement.
NASA plans to take ownership of the spacecraft once SpaceX builds it and control its operations throughout the mission.
Weighing 430,000 kilograms, the International Space Station is the largest structure ever built in space.
Based on previous observations of how other space stations, such as Mir and Skylab, broke apart during re-entry, NASA engineers expected the orbiting outpost to break up in three stages.
First, the large solar panels and radiators that keep the orbiting laboratory cool will detach, then the individual modules will break free of the station’s truss, or backbone structure. Eventually, the truss and modules themselves will tear apart.
Most of the material would evaporate, but large chunks are expected to survive. So NASA is targeting an area in the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, one of the most remote areas in the world known as a graveyard for satellites and spacecraft.
The first section of the International Space Station was launched in 1998 and has been inhabited by an international crew since 2001.
Participating nations the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency (ESA) have pledged to operate the microgravity laboratory until 2030, while the fifth partner, Russia, has only committed to operating it until 2028.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told Congress in April that given poor relations between the United States and Russia, it would be wise to begin developing a U.S. deorbit vehicle to “safely remove the entire space station so it doesn’t affect anybody or anything.”
Several companies are developing commercial successors to the International Space Station, including Axiom Space and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
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