The International Space Station (ISS) will continue to function until 2030, after which it will have to be “buried”: as the US space agency NASA announced on Wednesday, the SpaceX Group will build the necessary vehicle for this complicated maneuver.
The contract with Elon Musk’s company amounts to a whopping 843 million dollars (the equivalent of almost 780 million euros). The remains of the ISS will be sunk in the Pacific Ocean.
The spacecraft that will move the ISS into Earth’s atmosphere will be called the US Deorbit Vehicle. With this, the US and its international space partners wanted to “ensure a safe and responsible transition to low Earth orbit for the ISS following the end of station operations,” NASA explained.
Largest man-made object in space
With a weight of 430,000 kilograms, the ISS is by far the largest man-made object in space. Experts predict that much of the material will be destroyed when it reenters the atmosphere.
However, large chunks are expected to survive. They are expected to crash into the sea in the Pacific Ocean at Point Nemo – one of the most remote areas in the world – which is already used as a ‘graveyard’ for satellites and spacecraft.
The ISS is expected to be operational until 2030
Construction of the ISS in space began in 1998. Japan, Canada, the US and participating countries of the European Space Agency (ESA) want to operate the space station by 2030. The all-important partner in space, Russia, has so far only committed until 2028, but is open to continued exploitation until 2030.
Source: Krone
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