NASA to Pay SpaceX $843M to Destroy the International Space Station in 2030

• Through an announcement on Wednesday, NASA revealed that it will be destroying the International Space Station in 2030 with the help of Elon Musk-owned SpaceX.
• SpaceX has been offered a $843 million contract to build the US Deorbit Vehicle." This will deorbit the Space Station and safely dispose of it in the ocean.
• The reason for discarding the space station is quite simple: it has already been serving for 24 years and is no longer fit for long-term use. It's fatigued, worn out, and riddled with technical errors. There's no way to fix it, either.

NASA, with the help of SpaceX, has decided to destroy the International Space Station (ISS) in 2030.

According to a NASA announcement made on Wednesday, SpaceX is being paid a whopping $843 million contract to build the US Deorbit Vehicle." The job of this spacecraft will be to deorbit the station, guide it back to Earth's atmosphere, and then force it to break safely right there.

The discarded parts will then be carefully deposited in an ocean. Special precautions have been taken to avoid risking highly populated areas.

The reason why NASA had to rope in Elon Musks SpaceX is because the ISS weighs almost 450,000 kgs and is the length of a football field. External help was crucial to deal with such a massive structure.

Plus, the process has to be done not only in a way that's safe for us humans but also so that NASA can continue to use the emptied space" for its future projects.

Read more: SpaceX is building a network of 100 spy satellites for the U.S. government

Why Is the ISS Being Destroyed?

The biggest question is why NASA has resorted to destroying the International Space Station in the first place. Assembled in 1998 by the United States, Japan, Russia, Europe, and Canada, the ISS has played a crucial role in mankind's journey to space.

However, the station is ageing. For the last 24 years, it has constantly been at work, with various space crews from different nations performing different experiments.

Years of use have worn the ISS out. There have been frequent reports of leaks, malfunctions, and other technical errors. For starters, a leak that was found in August 2020 is continuing to cause problems even today. No one has been able to fix it yet.

Things at the International Space Station turned so undesirable that in 2021, Russia's state news agency suggested that it might be planning to leave the Station soon.

Lately, reports about technical malfunctions have been coming more often. The timeframe of the station's operations has expired and its condition leaves much to be desired," some officials had said.Can't the ISS Be Repaired?

From what I'm hearing, when the International Space Station was originally launched, it was already decided that it wouldn't stay on forever. This is why most of its parts were designed with a 30-year lifespan.

Although some of the parts were launched much later, the first pieces, Cargo Block Zarya" (FGB) and Node 1 Unity," will complete their 32-year lifecycle in 2030. These are also the primary parts of the station. And since they can neither be replaced nor repaired, there's no way the rest of the ISS can hold up.

However, this doesn't mark the end of space exploration in the slightest. In fact, once the International Space Station is gone, NASA will shift its focus toward privately-owned space stations. Privatization in space technology? Exciting times ahead.

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