NASA wants to bring the International Space Station back to Earth and will pay Space X $843 million to help. What’s the plan? – Observer

It’s no secret that NASA has been planning to deactivate the International Space Station (ISS), which, at the size of a football field, is the largest structure ever built outside of Earth. How it will go about this has been an unanswered question, but since signing a $1 billion contract with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a spacecraft to return the station to Earth, more details have become known.

The North American Space Agency revealed this at the end of last June. Musk’s company gave him $843 million. (approximately 770 million euros) to sink the space station in the ocean After its scheduled end of life in 2030, SpaceX will have to build a ship to force it into Earth’s atmosphere in a controlled manner, far from any civilization.

There aren’t many examples in history that could serve as a guide to the process. In 1973, Skylab, North America’s first space station, disintegrated upon re-entry, with some debris ending up in Australia and the waters around the Pacific Ocean. Twenty-eight years later, Russia’s Mir space station, which had been in operation for 15 years, also ended up in the Pacific Ocean. No damage was recorded in any of the cases, although NASA was fined for debris falling on Australian soil. But none came close to the dimensions of the International Space Station.

Deactivating it would require developing a spacecraft powerful enough to maneuver the ISS, which weighs about 430,000 kilograms, and complete 16 orbits around the Earth in 24 hours. “Choose a North American vehicle to de-orbit the ISS It will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition and end of operations.Ken Bowersox, NASA’s director of space operations, said, according to the agency. statement.

It is the law of life. Whatever goes up, also comes down. And this will also be the case with the International Space Station, which is already showing signs of aging. And it could not be any other way, if it has not been in orbit for 25 years, having hosted in its facilities more than 270 astronauts from five space agencies.

Plans to build the EEI began in the late 1980s, with several core components being built in the United States, Canada, Japan and several European countries. The first parts were launched from the United States and Russia in 1998. Parts from Europe and Japan and robotic arms from Canada followed. Astronauts Bill Shepard, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev will be the first residents of the newly built facility.