Cape Canaveral, Florida.– SpaceX will use a powerful capsule to knock the International Space Station out of orbit once it’s time to finish up that sprawling laboratory.
On Wednesday, NASA and Elon Musk’s company designed a plan to burn the space station upon re-entry and drop what remains into the ocean, ideally in early 2031 when it turns 32 years old.
The space agency rejected other options, such as dismantling the station and bringing everything back home or handing over ownership to someone else.
NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million contract to finish the station — the largest structure ever built outside the planet.
The space station is already showing signs of aging.
Russia and the United States sent the first pieces in late 1998 and astronauts moved in two years later.
Europe and Japan have added their own segments and Canada provided robotic arms.
By the time NASA’s airbridges were retired in 2011, the station had grown to the size of a football field, with a mass of nearly 1 million pounds, 430 thousand kilograms,
NASA estimates the station will last until at least 2030.
The goal is for private companies to launch their own space stations by that year, with NASA being one of many customers.
That strategy — already underway for the station’s cargo section and crew distribution — will free NASA to focus on trips to the moon and Mars.
Periodic spacecraft visits bolster the space station and it remains in orbit at approximately 260 miles altitude.
Otherwise it would be lower and lower until it fell out of orbit in an uncontrolled manner.
NASA hopes for a safe re-entry over a remote part of the South Pacific and possibly the Indian Ocean.
The densest pieces, ranging in size from a microwave oven to a sedan, are expected to survive in a narrow debris field 1,200 miles long.
Six months before the station is destroyed, the crew will return home.
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