SpaceX Awarded the Contract to Help Crash the International Space Station into the Sea

Peter_Brosdahl

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SpaceX has been awarded the contract to develop and deliver the deorbit vehicle that will bring down the International Space Station in 2030. NASA formally announced plans to decommission the station in 2022 and now it has decided that SpaceX will facilitate its splashdown into the sea. The contract is estimated to be worth $843 […]

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Geebus I want to follow this one. Imagine if they 'accidentally' drop it on a city in a country we have a bad relationship with... like... China or Russia. That's a what.. several thousand ton weapon of mas destruction here.
 
Grimlakin said:
Geebus I want to follow this one. Imagine if they 'accidentally' drop it on a city in a country we have a bad relationship with... like... China or Russia. That's a what.. several thousand ton weapon of mas destruction here.
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The majority of it will burn up on reentry.
 
Grimlakin said:
Geebus I want to follow this one. Imagine if they 'accidentally' drop it on a city in a country we have a bad relationship with... like... China or Russia. That's a what.. several thousand ton weapon of mas destruction here.
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Kind of like the mir?

 
Grimlakin said:
I hope it was designed to do just that. But I don't know.
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It's all extremely thin, light weight material with zero reentry shielding. I'm sure some of it will make it to the water, just not much of it.
 
If they can launch something to assist bringing it down... how about, oh I dunno, launching something to raise it's orbit back up? Why destroy the ISS, it's not like it's milk or eggs that goes bad? I understand maintenance is a thing. But if we destroy it, we have nothing to replace it with any time soon or likely in my lifetime....
 
I can see some of wanting to keep the ISS running - I think space research is a worth while endeavor.

On the other hand - it launched in 1998, and I can see the value in decommissioning it entirely for replacement. There’s been a lot of technology in the past 25 years

Deorbiting does clear it as space junk, but I hate to see it go without a replacement
 
It's old, constantly needing repairs, and is just small for what can be built with current technology.

SpaceX will probably have a new one built in 3 months at 1/5 the cost. LOL
 
Yeah, I pretty much felt the same. I instantly figured this was just another cherry on top of the cake they were already getting from NASA.
 
Burticus said:
If they can launch something to assist bringing it down... how about, oh I dunno, launching something to raise it's orbit back up? Why destroy the ISS, it's not like it's milk or eggs that goes bad? I understand maintenance is a thing. But if we destroy it, we have nothing to replace it with any time soon or likely in my lifetime....
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That's not the problem.

It's mostly political as in it's not just NASA that "owns" it, but many countries do.

The costs of repairing/fixing the station to last longer than the already longer lifespan it's lived would make way more sense in building something new.

Preferably owned by the USA and not many different countries.
 
Problem is that everything on it is old. All the systems are old and well past their expected life. It needs a complete overhaul, and that's easier said than done in space.

Much easier to build something new, launch the pieces and assemble it in space than it is to design new everything for the IIS and replace it all in orbit.
 
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