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Elon Musk's SpaceX contracted to destroy retired space station - BBC News

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Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al⁩ to ⁨technology@beehaw.org⁩

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnl02jl5pzno

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  • Kichae@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Oh fun. Who is Elon going to just haphazardly drop the ISS on top of?

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    • zhunk@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Serious answer- SpaceX is building the deorbit vehicle then turning it over to NASA, who will have full control over it.

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    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Whales

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      • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Wales?!?

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    • drwho@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Conventionally Point Nemo is the target.

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  • tal@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    IIRC Russia was talking about detaching their modules and using them to help bootstrap some new station. So I dunno if those will get brought down.

    That being said, that was also when that rather pugnacious guy was running Roscosmos, and I dunno if doing a new space station is the top of Russia’s priority list for their limited budget.

    kagis

    Dmitry Rogozin.

    kagis further

    It looks like they canceled the idea of reusing the Russian ISS modules back in 2021. So I guess those are destined for SpaceX’s deorbit too.

    en.wikipedia.org/…/Orbital_Piloted_Assembly_and_E…

    *The Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex (Russian: Орбитальный Пилотируемый Сборочно-Экспериментальный Комплекс, Orbital’nyj Pilotirujemyj Sborochno-Eksperimental’nyj Kompleks;[1][2] ОПСЭК, OPSEK) was a 2009–2017 proposed third-generation Russian modular space station for low Earth orbit. The concept was to use OPSEK to assemble components of crewed interplanetary spacecraft destined for the Moon, Mars, and possibly Saturn. The returning crew could also recover on the station before landing on Earth. Thus, OPSEK could form part of a future network of stations supporting crewed exploration of the Solar System.

    In early plans, the station was to consist initially of several modules from the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) of the International Space Station (ISS). However, after studying the feasibility of this, the head of Roscosmos stated in September 2017 the intention to continue working together on the ISS.[3] In April 2021, Roscosmos officials announced plans to exit from the ISS programme after 2024, stating concerns about the condition of its aging modules. The OPSEK concept had by then evolved into plans for the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), which would be built without modules from the ISS, and was anticipated to be launched starting in the mid-2020s.[4][5]

    en.wikipedia.org/…/Russian_Orbital_Service_Statio…

    *The Russian Orbital Service Station (Russian: Российская орбитальная служебная станция, Rossiyskaya orbital’naya sluzhebnaya stantsiya) (ROSS, Russian: РОСС)[3] is a proposed Russian orbital space station scheduled to begin construction in 2027. Initially an evolution of the Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex (OPSEK) concept, ROSS developed into plans for a new standalone Russian space station built from scratch without modules from the Russian Orbital Segment of the ISS.[4]

    I still dunno if they’re gonna get the money for a new space station.

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    • zhunk@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There’s no way Russia builds a new station. The timeline for them getting Nauka to orbit basically proves that it’s impossible. They’ve been trying to buddy up with China to visit theirs, though.

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  • anachronist@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Honestly this seems like a way to back-door inject another $800 million into the failing starship program.

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    • imnapr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Wait, how is Starship failing? They successfully returned from re-entry and made a soft landing with both the booster and starship itself. Seems to me that it’s well on track?

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    • HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What other company or government could do this?

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      • anachronist@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The space station’s orbit has been adjusted continuously over its lifetime initially by attaching a shuttle to it and doing a burn of the shuttle’s engines and later doing the same with progress modules.

        My bet is the original expectation of the designers was to deorbit by attaching centaurs (or whatever) to the existing docking ports and rotate the beast to the right attitude for a deorbit burn.

        NASA has more recently said they want the reentry to be as steep as possible to minimize the size of the debris field, and is using that to justify the development of a new specialized deorbit vehicle. No doubt SpaceX will declare that Starship is the proper vehicle for this, and then will plow the $800 million into the Starship program. The money they got for Artemus is already long gone and Starship has failed to demonstrate key components of the Artemus plan. Dear Moon has been cancelled so NASA and Artemus are the only customers they have left. NASA knows that without a cash injection Artemus is at risk.

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      • zhunk@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I was kind of hoping for Impulse Space, but they’re probably too unproven.

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      • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Maybe the countries who put it up there should have had a plan for taking it down? Or at least pay for it?

        Their failure is a huge grift opportunity like this.

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  • jarfil@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Keep in mind that “having a plan”, doesn’t say when that plan is to be executed.

    If you asked me, every object launched into orbit, should have a safe de-orbit plan beforehand. Chances are, as more private entities get onboard launching space stations, there might be regulations put in place to require a de-orbit plan for the launch to get approved.

    Getting a de-orbit plan for the ISS now, might be just a preemptive plan for when those regulations get enacted.

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    • Midnitte@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Agreed, though NASA is definitely planning to Deorbit the ISS, probably sometime after 2030.

      They’re not trying to get ahead of some regulation, but want to stop having to spend so many resources on maintaining it, when they could be doing other things.

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  • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Srsly, no-one going with the “it’s free real estate” meme.

    Jokingly, but also really, seems a waste. I get they don’t want the overhead, but just boost it north, perhaps to a lagrange, maybe just high orbit, but someone will come along to salvage eventually…

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    • jarfil@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There is no Lagrange point “North”.

      L1 is sunwards, L2 is counter-sunwards, L3 is on the other side of the Sun, L4 is sunrisewards, and L5 is sunsetwards.

      Going from LEO to L1/L2, requires a ∆v of 7.5km/s, which is comparable to the 9.4km/s ∆v required to go from Earth surface to LEO.

      Meanwhile, the ISS keeps getting slowed down by Earth’s atmosphere, and it only takes a ∆v of 1km/s or less, to plunge it into the atmosphere for reentry.

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      • SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It makes me really sad that the space station is going to be destroyed since I always really liked it, but the sheer amount of fuel needed to move it to a stable position makes me (begrudgingly) understand why they’re going to do it…

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      • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I was just colloquially referring to away from Earth as North.

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  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Endless handouts for leeches. Denial of basic human needs for everybody else.

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    • burble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How is this a handout? They bid for a contract and won it vs competitors.

      I’m hoping we get a source selection statement soon where they spell out why companies like Northrop and Blue didn’t win.

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      • drwho@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        SpaceX’s track record for orbital insertion definitely had something to do with that. When last I knew, N-G didn’t have its own launch facilities (that might’ve changed in the last few years but I doubt it).

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  • cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    spacex should just schedule it to be launched into space; that ought to do it

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  • user1234@lemmynsfw.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If Twitter is any indication, he’ll do a great job destroying the space station.

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  • autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    Nasa has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to bring down the International Space Station at the end of its life.The California-based company will build a vehicle capable of pushing the 430-tonne orbiting platform into the Pacific Ocean early in the next decade.A contract for the work, valued at up to $843m (£668m), was announced on Wednesday.The first elements of the space station were launched in 1998, with continuous crewed operations beginning in 2000.The station circles the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude just above 400km (250 miles) and has been home to thousands of scientific experiments, investigating all manner of phenomena from the aging process in humans to the formula for new types of materials. Engineers say the laboratory remains structurally sound, but plans need to be put in place now for its eventual disposal. Without assistance, it would eventually fall back to Earth on its own, however this poses a significant risk to populations on the ground. "Selecting a US De-orbit Vehicle for the International Space Station (ISS) will help Nasa and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition in low Earth orbit at the end of station operations. Nasa has studied various options for end-of-life disposal, external.These include disassembling the station and using the younger elements in a next-generation platform. Another idea has been to simply to hand it off to some commercial concern to run and maintain.But these solutions all have varying complications of complexity and cost, as well as the legal difficulty of having to untangle issues of ownership.Neither Nasa nor SpaceX have released details of the design for the de-orbiting “tug boat”, but it will require considerable thrust to safely guide the station into the atmosphere in the right place and at the right time.The platform’s great mass and extent - the dimensions roughly of a football pitch - mean some structures and components are bound to survive the heat of re-entry and make it all the way to the surface.Controllers will allow the orbit of the ISS to naturally decay over a period of time, and after removing the last crew will command the tugboat to execute the final de-orbit manoeuvre.Redundant spacecraft are aimed at a remote location in the Pacific known as Point Nemo.Named after the famous submarine sailor from Jules Verne’s book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the target graveyard is more than 2,500km from the nearest piece of land.Nasa is hopeful that a number of private consortia will have started launching commercial space stations by the time the ISS is brought out of the sky.The focus of the space agencies will shift to a project to build a platform called Gateway that will orbit the Moon. — Saved 13% of original text.

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