NASA on Wednesday said it awarded SpaceX US$843 million to build a vehicle capable of pushing the International Space Station into Earth’s atmosphere for its planned destruction around 2030, a task originally meant for Russia’s thrusters.
Under its new NASA contract, SpaceX will build what the space agency called the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle to conduct a “safe and responsible deorbit” of the ISS “in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.”
The football field-sized research lab, led primarily by the United States and Russia, has been continuously staffed with government astronauts during its 23 years of operation, but its aging components have led NASA and its foreign partners to set 2030 as a planned retirement date.