At the end of the decade, NASA plans to retire the International Space Station (ISS) by dragging the orbital laboratory over a remote section of the Pacific Ocean and allowing atmospheric forces to rip it to shreds. Last week, the space agency learned a little more about the vehicle that will carry out the unprecedented maneuver.
On Friday, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft boosted the space station’s orbit to gather data that will support the company’s development of a U.S. deorbit vehicle (DV). NASA awarded the firm a contract worth up to $843 million to design and build the vehicle, which it said will be a heavily modified version of the prolific Dragon.
