NASA has awarded SpaceX up to $843 million to safely deorbit and destroy the International Space Station (ISS), which is nearing the end of its operational life. According to the plan, a specially designed vehicle from SpaceX will drag the ISS back to Earth after 2030, when the station’s operations are set to conclude. The ISS, spanning the size of a football field, will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at over 17,000 mph (27,500 km/h) and crash into a designated ocean location.
Ken Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate, stated that this deorbiting supports NASA’s future commercial space destinations and ensures continued use of near-Earth space. Launched in 1998 and continuously inhabited since 2000, the ISS has facilitated over 3,300 scientific experiments by astronauts from multiple countries. However, aging infrastructure and increasing technical issues, along with risks from space debris, highlight the need for its decommissioning.
Despite the 2030 target, the exact timing of the ISS’s deorbit remains uncertain. NASA plans to maintain operations through 2030, with commercial stations like Axiom Space’s Axiom Station and Blue Origin and Sierra Space’s Orbital Reef expected to replace the ISS by the decade’s end. The financial and technical roles of other participating space agencies in this mission are yet to be detailed.
