Our good old International Space Station, which has played such an important role at the scientific and diplomatic level for more than 25 years, will unfortunately not last forever. Humanity’s space embassy will be retired for good at the beginning of the next decade, when a specially designed spacecraft decelerates its old wreckage and sends it burning into the atmosphere. And NASA has finally announced the name of the service provider that will take care of it: SpaceX inherited this great responsibility.
The space agency announced in a press release that it awarded Elon Musk’s company a hefty envelope of 843 million dollars for the construction of this space hearse, the so-called US Deorbit Vehicle (USDV).
A very decent amount for a device that is ultimately quite rudimentary, but still justified.
Indeed, ejecting the ISS from its orbit will not be a cakewalk. Since commissioning, its mass has continued to increase as new modules have been added.
To date it weighs approx 420 tons, the equivalent of about 340 standard cars. It is the heaviest and largest space structure ever built, and therefore a rather muscular contraption will be required to drag it to its final resting place.
However, SpaceX already has considerable expertise in designing this type of machine, so NASA liked its proposal.
It remains to be seen how the USDV will leave Earth. Indeed, the wording of the press release suggests that this contract only applies to the tug itself, not the vehicle that will be used to launch it.
The latter will be the subject of another contract that has not yet been awarded by NASA.
SpaceX is clearly one of the main contenders; its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launchers could very well be responsible for sending the executioner of the ISS into orbit.
But the agency could also choose another launcher such as Vulcan Centaur, ULA’s new heavy launcher.
But in any case, SpaceX’s mission will end there. After design (or after launch into orbit if it also inherits this contract), Elon Musk’s company will hand over ownership and control of the vehicle to NASA.
Agency operators are responsible for carrying out the mission itself.
Beautiful fireworks in perspective
In practice, it will simply consist of the USDV docking with the station, then accelerating in the opposite direction of its orbit to slow down. It will therefore enter the atmosphere at speeds in excess of 25,000 km/h, and will therefore be subject to Dante’s mechanical and thermal constraints – with hellish fireworks.
According to NASA’s models, these forces will break the outpost into three parts that will disintegrate on their own.
Much of the structure will be completely pulverized, but many large pieces will not have time to burn completely, creating a large cloud of debris.
This is exactly why NASA planned this mission. By conducting this maneuver at a very specific point in its orbit, it will be able to ensure that the ISS corpse will not pose a threat to the population and Earth’s infrastructure.
In this case NASA intends to aim at Point Nemo — ” person ” in Latin. As its name suggests, it is an area of the Pacific Ocean that is very little visited, and for good reason: it is the point on Earth farthest from any land surface.
For this reason, it is already a large satellite graveyard, so the venerable station will rest alongside some of its illustrious ancestors in this watery tomb.
Another advantage of Point Nemo is that it is surrounded south pacific vortex, a strong circular current that isolates the region from a hydrological point of view.
The area is therefore very poor in nutrients, so animals visit it very little.
If the simple fact of such a structure sinking is obviously not ideal from an ecological point of view, this destination will at least limit the damage.
More than a station, a real symbol
Originally it was Roscomos, the Russian space agency, which was supposed to be responsible for deorbiting the ISS.
However, the situation changed completely with the invasion of Ukraine, which seriously affected the relations between Putin’s country and the rest of the international community.
Russia has been kicked out of several major programs such as ExoMars, and in this context of hostility and uncertainty, other partners preferred to ensure the transition themselves.
A decision that is anything but anecdotal and even very representative of what awaits us after the retirement of the station.
Its primary role is to serve as a scientific outpost. At this level, other infrastructures will inevitably end up being taken over and there is no reason to worry in this regard.
But the ISS is much more than just a scientific outpost.
For many years it represents a a neutral zone, an unshakable ivory tower in geopolitical relations ; it plays a key role as a symbolic excuse, a common goal for maintaining cooperation between nations.
This mission is even more important today, in a context where the international community seems to be breaking down more and more every day and unfortunately this aspect will be much more difficult to replace.
Indeed, the status of space has changed greatly with technological advances over the past few decades.
It used to be a mysterious and inaccessible domain that pushed the entire international community forward hand in hand.
But the explosion of the new space race today is pushing the various space powers, now much more autonomous, to advance alone in this new El Dorado of enormous strategic and economic importance.
So we’ll have to hope that SpaceX’s hearse will just bury the structure itself, and that the ideal embodied by the ISS will survive this spectacular destruction.
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