SpaceX Will Deliver the International Space Station’s Deorbiting Death Knell

One day the International Space Station will retire, and SpaceX’s deorbiting vehicle will deliver it to its fiery destination.

• Although NASA and other space agencies will keep operating the International Space Station (ISS) until 2030, the space station will eventually need to be retired.
• Today NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million contract to design a deorbiting vehicle that will deliver the ISS to its fiery demise in the Earth’s atmosphere.
• This deorbiting vehicle will also be punching a one-way ticket and will ensure that the 880,000-pound space station has no impact on the world below.

All good things eventually come to the end, and even the International Space Station—the 24-year-long orbital experiment supported by space agencies around the world — can’t escape this inevitable fate. Of course, retiring an aging space station isn’t quite as easy as putting in your two weeks and riding off into the sunset.

No, space stations require a bit more preparation.

Today NASA announced that SpaceX will be the author of the ISS’s demise by awarding the company a $843 million contract to build a deorbiting vehicle that safely guides the ISS to its fiery doom. Although SpaceX will develop the vehicle, which will also be punching a one-way ticket along with the famous space station, NASA will take ownership over the deorbiting platform and operate it throughout the entire mission.

With the space station weighing in at around 880,000 pounds, this massive bulk of science will definitely benefit from a guided effort for its disintegration in the Earth’s atmosphere — a process that’s far from easy. In March 2021, for example, NASA released a 5,800-pound cargo pallet containing old nickel hydride batteries using the robotic arm aboard the ISS. The idea was for the entire pallet to burn up on reentry three years later. Things did not go according to plan as a small piece survived the fiery descent and impacted a home in Naples, Florida. So, just imagine the damage something 150 times heavier could do.

“Selecting a U.S. Deorbit Vehicle for the International Space Station will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition in low Earth orbit at the end of station operations. This decision also supports NASA’s plans for future commercial destinations and allows for the continued use of space near Earth,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a press statement. “The orbital laboratory remains a blueprint for science, exploration, and partnerships in space for the benefit of all.”

Five space agencies have guided operations of the ISS since 1988, including NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos. The first four agencies have committed to ISS operations until 2030 while Roscosmos has only committed to 2028, according to NASA.

Although orbiting 254 miles above our heads, the ISS isn’t immune from politics on the ground. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent sanctions levied against the belligerent country, the then-head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin threatened to pull out of the ISS project altogether (Rogozin himself being a target of the sanctions). NASA mostly shrugged off those threats and the collaboration since has been described as “stable, if tense, continuation of operation.”

During its quarter century of operations, the ISS has been the space-based home of some 280 individuals across 23 different countries working on some 3,300 experiments. NASA built the orbital platform during the Space Shuttle era, stood witness to the very last Shuttle flight in 2011, and grew into the go-to destination for the U.S.’s burgeoning commercial spaceflight market. The lessons within the walls of its 16 pressurized modules will forever form the DNA of future space missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.