SpaceX was selected by NASA to destroy the International Space Station

In a contract worth up to $843 million, NASA has chosen SpaceX to develop the United States deorbit vehicle, which will be responsible for safely carrying the $150 billion international space station out of Earth orbit and burning it in our atmosphere. Once completed, NASA will assume ownership of the deorbiting vehicle and operate it throughout the mission scheduled for 2030, when the ISS is guided into the atmosphere, both the vehicle and the station itself will burn safely before reaching the ground, in If any fragment survives reentry, it will fall into a safe region of the South Pacific Ocean regularly used to deorbit spacecraft, it is the responsibility of the five space agencies that operate the ISS; ESA European space agency; jaxa, Japanese aerospace exploration agency; CSA, Canadian space agency Ross Cosmos of Russia and NASA of the United States. To ensure the safe decommissioning of the station at the end of its operational life in 30 years, NASA will currently spend more than $3 billion a year on the ISS program with $1.3 billion on onboard operations and nearly $1.8 billion on crew transportation. and cargo, these resources could be redirected to deep space exploration initiatives.

The ISS, weighing 420,000 kg and orbiting the earth at 29,000 km/h every 90 minutes, represents a monumental challenge for the engineers responsible. Since the beginning of the project in 1998, the station has been a symbol of international cooperation and scientific advancement, continuously occupied. by space explorers from 23 different countries. In 202 NASA awarded a $140 million contract to Action Space to provide commercial habitable modules for a new space station, Action plans to connect its first module through 2026 with more modules each year when the ISS decommissions these modules could form a station independent space, a smaller station is also being built kway lunar that will orbit the moon and serve as a stopping point for lunar missions. NASA also has agreements with Blue Origin, Nenor Rex and North Gruman for other flight modules, the greatness and importance of the ISS to humanity will not be forgotten and the challenges and innovations involved in its dismantling will surely be a new chapter in technologies for space exploration.