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IT Home reported on July 18 that NASA and SpaceX jointly announced thatShared the details of the International Space Station's mission to end its mission and return to Earth in 2030。

IT Home reported on June 27 that NASA and SpaceX reached a $843 million contract, with SpaceX responsible for developing the "US Deorbit Vehicle" to safely guide the retirement of the US segment of the International Space Station.

Image source: NASA

NASA held a media briefing today to share more details about deorbiting the International Space Station.The entire deorbit mission may last 12-18 months.。

While the International Space Station will be replaced in the 2030s, it will be a long time before the orbiting laboratory officially dies, NASA says.

Candidate details

Selection documents disclosed by NASA show that among the final competitors, there are only SpaceX and Northrop Grumman (NG), and SpaceX won the cooperation because of its "Dragon" spacecraft design.

Of particular concern is that NG's space tug concept may not be feasible at certain "solar Beta" angles, according to official documents posted on the government procurement website SAM.gov.

“SpaceX’s approach significantly increases the likelihood of producing a high-reliability USDV, minimizes new development and testing, reduces the risk to the government of delays in delivering the United States deorbit vehicle, and significantly increases the likelihood of successful contract performance,” the document states.

Details of the "American Deorbit Vehicle"

Reports say the deorbit vehicle will be based on the existing Dragon spacecraft and will carry more than 35,000 pounds of propellant, six times the amount of the existing Dragon spacecraft, and will have power generation and storage capabilities three to four times that of the Dragon spacecraft.

Sarah Walker, SpaceX's director of mission management, said the Dragon spacecraft will have an "enhanced torso section" that will be equipped with additional propellant tanks, as well as engines, avionics, power generation and other equipment customized for complex missions.

SpaceX on Wednesday released a rendering of the "America Deorbit Vehicle," which looks like a traditional Dragon spacecraft with a large trunk attached to the end.

Derailment plan

After docking with the International Space Station, the "American Deorbit Vehicle" will continue to push the space station out of its normal orbit. The whole process will last 12-18 months.

The International Space Station is currently 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the ground. Under the thrust of the "US deorbit vehicle", it will gradually "float down" to an altitude of 220 kilometers (136 miles), at which time the astronauts in the space station will be evacuated.

Six months after the astronauts evacuated the International Space Station, the "US Deorbit Vehicle" began to push it back into the Earth's atmosphere, and the debris will land in an uninhabited sea area (the landing site has not yet been finalized).

Image credit: Michal Vaclavik

The mission is complex, and SpaceX must develop a vehicle powerful enough to guide the space station through the increasing atmospheric drag.

Image credit: Michal Vaclavik

As Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s head of Crew Dragon mission management, explained:

I think the most complicated and challenging thing is that this (final) burn has to be powerful enough to get the entire space station moving, while also resisting the torque and forces caused by the increasing atmospheric drag on the space station to ensure that it ends up in its intended location.