this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
90 points (94.1% liked)

Technology

59712 readers
5783 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s
[email protected]
[email protected]
L4s
enu
90
NASA selects SpaceX to build deorbit vehicle for International Space Station (www.space.com)
submitted 5 months ago by IndustryStandard to c/technology
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

NASA has selected SpaceX to develop a vehicle that will bring the International Space Station to a fiery end when the time comes.

The space agency first asked U.S. aerospace companies for proposals in March 2023 and then again in September of that year. The request was for a "space tug" vehicle that could help deorbit the U.S. sections of the International Space Station (ISS) safely.

On Wednesday (June 26), the agency issued a statement announcing that SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the "U.S. Deorbit Vehicle" as it's known. The contract is worth up to $843 million; that total does not include any launch costs, however, and is for the vehicle development only. The vehicle will be responsible for disposing of the space station "in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030," the statement adds.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] homesweethomeMrL 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Good point, if they’re sending a rocket up there anyway, why not just push it away from earth rather than towards it? Is it because it’s in LEO and there’s a ton of other satellites farther out?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Way too much dV to leave earth

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There's no need to leave earth, just lift it into a medium earth orbit. There are literally thousands of kilometres in between low earth orbit (where there are lots of communications, spy, navigation and weather satellites) and geosynchronous (where there are lots of communications satellites), and outside of those two there's virtually nothing there

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Still way too much dV. Deorbiting might be a few hundred m/s. Getting up to medium earth orbit could easily be 1000-2000 m/s.