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SpaceX Wins $843-Million NASA Contract to Destroy the International Space Station
(www.scientificamerican.com)
This job seems to be more fitting for Boeing
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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they have to build it from scratch to do that though.
or MrBeast
Guy is a better businessman than entire Boeing executive team tbh
If a chunk of ISS falls and damages something or hurts a person, who is liable: the organization that put it up there or the one paid to take it down?
Per the contract once spacex builds and docks the deorbit vehicle to the ISS they are hand over ownership of it to NASA. So NASA would be responsible.
Plot twist: deorbit vehicle will be cybertruck
The ISS is aging, and for safety’s sake, NASA intends to incinerate the immense facility around 2031. To accomplish the job, the agency will pay SpaceX up to $843 million, according to a statement released on June 26.
See you guys in 2040
SpaceX has won the right to tackle a monumental task: destroying the International Space Station (ISS). The demolition will shove the iconic and enormous station down through Earth’s atmosphere in a fiery display. And if anything goes wrong, a cascade of debris could rain down on our planet’s surface.
Conceived and built in a post-cold-war partnership with Russia, the ISS, like so many of NASA’s major projects, has lasted far longer than its initial design life of 15 years. Nothing lasts forever, however, especially in the harsh environment of outer space. The ISS is aging, and for safety’s sake, NASA intends to incinerate the immense facility around 2031. To accomplish the job, the agency will pay SpaceX up to $843 million, according to a statement released on June 26. The contract covers the development of a unique deorbit vehicle to usher the unwieldy ISS to its doom yet excludes launch costs.
Perfect metaphor for the US space program as a whole
Not from the Onion. Also that seems a little low for a space mission.
Because it isn't a Boeing contract
Isn’t it in a low enough orbit that it should just come down and burn up eventually anyway? Seems like they could save a lot of money that way…
It's big enough that not all of it will burn up. And you don't want the debris to hit someone.
Gotcha, makes sense.
To add to what others have said already, much smaller batteries, though think like lantern sized, didn't burn up on re-entry and damaged someone's house. NASA is already paying for that.
There will be shit falling down due to it's size, so the deorbit has to be controlled
Just give it to some KSP players lol.
They'll figure out a cheap way to either send it on a near vertical entry path into the ocean, or a 150 year multi planet gravity sling into the sun.