A SpaceX vehicle to deorbit the glorious International Space Station

NASA has chosen Elon Musk’s company to develop the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which will dock and drag the ISS into the atmosphere after 2030. However, this will only happen once private orbital stations are operational. A handover to continue conducting science and research in microgravity, as has been done for decades on the most famous and celebrated human outpost in space.

BY EMILIO COZZI

The verdict has been given, and the face of the executor is now known.

The International Space Station, which will be remembered as the longest-lasting and most significant human engineering project beyond the atmosphere, will meet its final destiny at the hands of NASA with a SpaceX vehicle. The end is on the horizon; we know what will happen and approximately when. A spacecraft designed and developed by Elon Musk’s company will reach the ISS, dock with it, and drag it down, like a wrestler grabbing their opponent and plunging to the mat with them. There will be many ceremonies, of course – you don’t let go of a piece of history, a monument, lightly – but it will be brutal.

The announcement comes from NASA, which has allocated 843 million dollars to “develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, providing the capability to deorbit the space station while ensuring it avoids populated areas.” The U.S. space agency explicitly speaks of a handover, a transition to the era of private space stations.

A tow truck to demolition

Unlike recent contracts, many of which have been with SpaceX, this one is a more conventional purchase: after the vehicle’s development, NASA will take possession and carry out the final step with its own mission. The U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will reach the ISS in orbit and re-enter the atmosphere to crash into a location on Earth far from any populated area. It will likely be Point Nemo, also known as the “spacecraft cemetery.” Geographically, it is the point in the Pacific farthest from any land, island, or continent. Some past space stations, like the Soviet Salyut and Mir, along with hundreds of cargo ships and satellites, have met their end there.

Given its size (over 400 tons and an extension similar to a soccer field), the International Space Station will not burn up entirely in the atmosphere, and the deorbiting vehicle will disintegrate with it; inevitably, many of its pieces will reach the Earth’s surface. Therefore, a great effort will be needed to direct it to a location where it won’t cause damage. It will undoubtedly be the most massive in-orbit servicing operation in history, up to that point and for many years to come. A colossal effort in terms of necessary resources (including economic) and energy to move such a mass. It’s no coincidence that NASA specified that the contract does not include the launch service, which will be paid for separately. The total cost of the operation will likely exceed a billion dollars.

From 1998 to 2030 and beyond

The timing – when everything will happen – is still unknown. The ISS has funds to operate until at least 2030, although the final word has not yet been said: last January, Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, stated that “nothing magical will happen” in that year and that the ISS will continue operations until commercial space stations are ready to host astronauts: “That will be the moment when the ISS steps aside.” Like a mother with her now-weaned cubs.

A mothership – indeed – that has become the undisputed protagonist of space in the new millennium. The first module, the Russian Zarya, reached space on November 20, 1998, and orbited alone for 16 days before being joined by the first U.S. element, Unity, ferried by the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Since November 2, 2000, when the two Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, together with the American astronaut William Shepherd, docked and entered, there has always been someone living up there (with a peak of 13 people in 2009). So far, nearly 300 astronauts have spent time there, most for long periods, ranging from three months to, in rare cases, over a year. Among NASA astronauts, Frank Rubio holds the record for the longest mission: 371 days. With 675 days, Peggy Whitson is the American astronaut who has spent the most time floating in the orbiting outpost. Still, that’s “few” compared to the 1,020 days spent aboard in five different missions by cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko.

It’s essential to highlight that the ISS has also been the most peaceful international space collaboration, the ultimate symbol and concrete testimony of successful space diplomacy.

Born from an American idea that grew in the 1960s, it took shape right after the end of the Cold War, welcoming astronauts from 23 different countries and, particularly in the recent decade, seeing Russian cosmonauts collaborating with American and European astronauts, despite the tensions and wars between their respective nations just a few hundred kilometers below. In space, the supreme good is knowledge, and collaboration is the indispensable condition for survival and, therefore, for knowledge. “Those who fly know there are no borders, only horizons.”

Science in space for Earth

In this spirit, the International Space Station has seen science, a participatory effort by researchers and scholars worldwide, make extraordinary progress in investigating the human body, with experiments on the effects of microgravity on muscles, bones, cells, and neurons. It has accumulated crucial knowledge for future deep space missions and also – it’s not an exaggeration to say especially – for therapies, diagnoses, and treatments of debilitating and degenerative diseases in “terrestrial” patients. The study of materials and technological solutions developed for orbit has generated spin-offs 400 kilometers below, including commercial applications, inventions, technological advancements, and patents, from liquid recycling to ventilation systems, from bioreactors for cultivating human tissue cells to aeroponic agriculture.

The International Space Station has cost 100 billion dollars, and its operational and maintenance costs are another three billion each year just for NASA. It’s all public money, invested for the benefit of knowledge and the advancement of our civilization.

In this light, Stich’s words, expressing the desire to extend the ISS program until other orbiting stations enable new research, new applications, including commercial ones, and further progress supporting missions to the Moon and Mars, are better understood. Starting in the 2030s, new outposts, laboratories, and observatories, this time private, are expected to replace the International Space Station. Examples include the Texas-based Axiom Space, which plans to launch and dock with the ISS before “growing” and becoming autonomous, or Voyager Space’s StarLab and Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef, Sierra Space, and Boeing. There are also projects promising artificial gravity, like Vast Space’s, to be inaugurated with the Haven-1 module, to be launched in 2025 with a SpaceX Falcon 9.

The last dance

For many, the ISS has also been the first direct experience with extra-atmospheric activities: for years, NASA has been streaming videos of activities performed onboard. Astronauts are exceptional communicators, often creative; after completing their (many) duties in orbit, they have played, made music, photographed, narrated, and entertained the global audience while floating in zero gravity. By doing so, they have given visibility and value in the collective perception to the effort required to operate in extreme conditions.

The ISS is impressive, orbiting between 370 and 460 kilometers; it completes an orbit around Earth approximately every 90 minutes, giving its occupants 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every 24 hours. Its transits are a pure spectacle, observable even with the naked eye, and quite frequent.

When the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle reaches it, it will be a global event: not one, but two lights will be visible in a space rendezvous destined to mark an era. And when the time comes, everything will end with a grand cascade of sparks, trails, and flares: “shooting stars” in a final celebration. Glory to the International Space Station.