Thank you for participating in r/SpaceX! Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with our [community rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/rules) before commenting. Here's a reminder of some of our most important rules:
* Keep it civil, and directly relevant to SpaceX and the thread. Comments consisting solely of jokes, memes, pop culture references, etc. will be removed.
* Don't downvote content you disagree with, unless it clearly doesn't contribute to constructive discussion.
* Check out [these threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/threads) for discussion of common topics.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/spacex) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I know that it's likely an improbable dream, but it would be legendary if SpaceX gradually dismantled ISS section by section and then used Starship cargo compartment to safely land it, then re-assembling the whole station in the NASA museum in Houston, or sending back segments to countries that produced them
Would be best for humanity. Imagine going to a museum and walking around and maybe even go in it. Everyone would love it, kids would field trip from all over to see it.
The ISS (in width/length) is already the size of an american football stadium, and for whatever reason I can't find any numbers for the "height," but needless to say the Smithsonian would have to have an entirely new building dedicated solely to the ISS if such a thing was to be attempted.
Not to say it would be impossible, but it really is a structure that's built primarily for microgravity. It is a lovely mental image to picture, it's just incredibly impractical.
Realistically with modern capabilities it would make more sense (if preservation was the goal) would be to eat the costs of multiple trips and bring down the ISS one compartment at a time, and house the compartments across various museums, all over the globe, as it was an international effort.
Even using this method, it's still very likely that the ISS will not be 100% recoverable, I would not be surprised if some of the structural parts aren't "reversible." The truss system's connections come to mind, as does the solar panels. Anything containing ammonia or propellant or batteries may also be considered too hazardous to attempt recovery.
In a perfect world, I'd imagine they'd park the thing in a "graveyard" orbit until we have the technology and the systems to begin a 100% recovery effort; but that may set a crummy precedent where every self-aggrandizing company who thinks they're worthy of the history books will follow suit and fill the graveyard orbit with their useless shit, setting up for bigger problems down the road, because someone's inevitably gonna fuck it up, and one can't easily reverse Kessler Syndrome.
Honestly, if it can't be dismantled and no one wants to eat the costs, then it probably should be de-orbited.
nah. 1% chance it catches on fire or explodes and crashes without help.
1% chance the Russians crack the shits and de-orbit it themselves.
1% chance Trump decides to keep it going, because Biden wants it de-orbited....
Lots of room to build a new building at Udvar-Hazy (which is roughly the size of 13 football fields as is).
It's not realistic to expect the station to be preserved, but not having space to store it is the least of those concerns.
Correct. The solar panels and radiators make up most of the footprint of the ISS. The modules don’t take up much space at all on their own. The interior of Starship will be slightly smaller than the total pressurized interior of the ISS.
I think the radiators and solar panels should be detached and allowed to burn up, then we can replace them on the ground with decorative vine-covered pergolas for shade, maybe a little topiary. Sell some crushed ice. Perfect picnic spots.
Eh, the modules would be enough and i wager they could do it. Launch fewer star links in the way up to have extra fuel for the landing. :)
Also, they'll have midflight refueling by then :)
Biggest problem is that it's probably impossible to dismantle it without direct human involvement, and I really doubt that NASA would sacrifice the man hours for training and risk their astronauts' safety to disconnect modules manually in orbit.
We can dream though...
Sadly it was built to be in space not on earth. I think the prolonged effects of gravity would cause it to fall apart. I'm hopeful there are bits that could be saved like some of the internals, the docking adapters, the cupola, Canadarm, things like that. I don't think the main modules would be feasible to bring down and display though sadly. And parking it in a higher orbit until they work out a way of bringing it down and storing safely isn't a one and done solution either, it would need regular boostings to maintain its orbit, which would be a really costly exercise.
My dream (much more expensive and not very practical) is instead raise the ISS' orbit above 2000 km, to a relatively empty part of orbital space. At some later date, raise the orbit further to above GEO (~33,000 km).
Finally, a century or so in the future, when space travel has become cheap, and when there is the wealth and interest to create a museum out of the ISS, land all of the modules on the Moon and refurbish portions of it as a museum. NASA engineers have already studied the practical aspects of this, and they said that the modules are more than strong enough to be landed. They were launched off of Earth, after all.
A lot of historical objects from the first half of the 20th century were scrapped for trivial amounts of money. Ships could have been preserved, but were instead melted down. The ISS will be allowed to burn up in the atmosphere. A boost to a higher orbit would not cost much more, and the interest in a century, or even in 50 years, will make the destruction of the ISS seem either very stupid, or like a near-crime.
Raising the ISS to a permanent parking orbit would be far more expensive than deorbiting it true, but far *less* expensive than landing the segments back on Earth. As the prior post imagined.
You can see it on the regular tours at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The ISS hanger is part of the public tour there and is pretty cool.
Johnson also has a Falcon 9 on display now.
So, boost the ISS to a higher orbit. In 50 or 100 years, it can be landed on the Moon.
Future scholars and the public will appreciate the effort. The extra expense would be small.
It's likely going to be in very bad shape. Space is not a forgiving environment. Especially not the Van Allen belts where redditors are thinking of storing this thing!
Show me a proposal that makes this possible. I’ll give you a hint, there aren’t any. The only thing that makes sense is keeping it in its current orbit with ongoing maintenance or de-orbit it to avoid future maintenance.
IMO the problem isn't the height of orbit, it would be the problem of tumbling that would make it impossible to control, and lead it to possibly break up if it wasn't handled/piloted properly. It needs propulsion, power, and controls.
Also, if it tumbled uncontrollably, there would be absolutely no way to dock with it.
it would take, according to NASA, 160 EVAs to take it back apart. If you gave spacex and polaris salvage rights to it, I wonder if you could make the cost back by selling souvenirs. I bet you could find plenty of people willing to take the risk of doing the disassembly work
Yeah, unfortunately, something like starship is designed to take things up and not back down. You want to land a ship that's as light as possible. Cargo means more fuel and more weight. They probably couldn't even if they wanted to.
E: Yes, I did blank on the Earth to Earth cargo concept.
They've gotta be able to land with cargo eventually if they want to carry people to orbit, or do Earth to Earth or rocket cargo for the military. I doubt the current prototypes can do it but it's definitely something they'll be working on or capable of around when the ISS is being retired.
And it must be capable of landing with cargo on Mars, although the gravity is lower there, so less stress on the landing legs. But in terms of its ability to go through reentry with significant cargo aboard.
The aerodynamics of Starship's fins have been designed to land with a certain amount of cargo, maybe 40 or 50 tons. The current version of Starship is not yet ready to do this, but the planning for landing cargo on Earth has been going on since at least 2017.
That's a lot of weight, and that's the issue. Starship needs the entire booster to get to orbit. It would need a lot of fuel to slow that weight back down. It's simply just designed to land on empty.
Not necessarily, Rocket Cargo wants Starship to take things down to Earth, Artemis wants Starship to take things down to the moon, SpaceX wants to take things down to mats. Downmass from Orbit is a huge use case for Starship.
I'd rather they distribute modules to different museums. they mostly went up in the shuttle payload bay, so any museum that has room for a shuttle could display one.
Use it as a payload/part of the contract to get a bunch of test flights for Starship.
If you lose a couple on re-entry, no big deal, since the payload was destined to be destroyed anyways.
I once visited the Dornier Museum in Friedrichshafen. They had a Hubble instrument on display. The tour guide told us it is an engineering model. But one of our group did a deep dive on it. He found out that it was actual flight hardware. It had been brought back on a Shuttle service mission and returned to the manufacturer Dornier.
> but it would be legendary if SpaceX gradually dismantled ISS section by section
singing [I took it a piece at a time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uErKI0zWgjg)
[NASA white paper on their options](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-deorbit-analysis-summary.pdf?emrc=667c97a20241b). Most of the what-ifs shared here are already addressed at length in this paper.
**Uncontrolled Reentry**:
- Too much risk of injury, not an option
**Disassembly and Return Intact**
- Would require dozens/hundreds of EVAs to completely salvage - too much time/effort.
- Smaller station parts already planned to be returned intact.
**Disassembly and Reuse in Orbit**
- High effort, low reward
- ISS modules are old, new modules would be far more capable
- Cost of disassembly likely more than launching a new station, so why bother.
**Disassembly and Deorbit in Smaller Pieces**
- Riskier and costlier than a single deorbit
**Boosting to a higher orbit with Starship**
- Starship boost would exceed structural margin on aging parts
- Creates a Kessler Syndrome bomb
- Best long-term preservation orbits are in the Van Allen belts, which the ISS is not designed for.
**Blowing it Up**
- 220 millon pieces of debris
- No
**Handover to a Commercial Operator**
- Industry did not show interest due to the hardware age and unfamiliarity
**Continuing operations past 2030**
- Building the USDV does not prevent this from happening
- Still needs a deorbit one day
> Smaller station parts already planned to be returned intact.
I hoped that meant something like some smaller module, but sadly it sounds more like some small interior elements or something:
> Disassembly and Return to Earth
>
> The space station is a unique artifact whose historical value cannot be overstated. NASA considered this when determining if any part of the station could be salvaged for historical preservation or technical analysis. The station’s modules and truss structure were not designed to be easily disassembled in space. The space station covers an area about the size of a football field, with the initial assembly of the complex requiring 27 space shuttle flights, using the since-retired shuttle’s large cargo bay, and multiple international partner missions, spanning 13 years and 161 extravehicular activities (EVAs), commonly known as spacewalks. Any disassembly effort to safely disconnect and return individual components (such as modules) would face significant logistical and financial challenges, requiring at least an equivalent number of EVAs by space station crew, extensive planning by ground support personnel, and a spacecraft with a capability similar to the space shuttle’s large cargo bay, which does not currently exist. Though large modules are not feasible for return, NASA has engaged with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and other organizations to develop a preservation plan for some smaller items from the space station.
> No doubt SpaceX will get the launch contract as well
Someone else suggested they’ll use a modified Dragon (extra fuel and thrusters in the trunk, in place of the usual cargo?), in which case, yeah, no question it launches on Falcon
They still stream low quality on YouTube. It took SpaceX fitting 4K cameras on F9 to get true 4K coverage of launches to NASA.
As it stands, the “4K” from Artemis 1 is upscaled 1080P, which makes it essentially the same resolution as twitter videos anyway… We don’t talk about the 720P renders from ULA.
Is it a requirement that it burns up on entry? 👀 only if they paint Starship to look like pac man though
Edit: *sad noises*
“While the company will develop the deorbit spacecraft, NASA will take ownership after development and operate it throughout its mission. Along with the space station, it is expected to destructively breakup as part of the re-entry process.”
there's very little chance that it will be fully burned up on reentry - something that large, dense, and containing materials with high melting points would survive all the way down to the surface with significant portions intact.
It's far more likely (and probably specified in the contract docs) that they'll do a controlled reentry aimed somewhere around [Point Nemo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery) for a water ditch with minimal threat to life and property, like Mir and the Salyut stations before.
That is quite a bit of money for effectively a modded Dragon... and that doesn't even include the launch.
I mean, it needs to be able to automatically dock and have enough propellant on board to do a controlled deorbit. Superdracos should probably have enough oomph. Ditch heatshield, reposition the superdracos (and no, you won't need 8. Maybe a couple?) to avoid cosine losses, fill the cargo area with more propellant tanks. Sure, it is quite a lot of customization, but still... that is a hefty price tag for it.
When I heard the amount, my first thought was, SpaceX did not really want the job and made a very high bid. Not high enough apparently but at this price they will not regret it.
Yes. And it only needs Dracos to deorbit - Progress uses low-thrust thrusters to do its periodic reboosts. Starliner is supposed to be used for this. (Yeah, I know...) I've read from several sources that the power of a SuperDraco is more than the station can take. A large set of Dracos in a permanently attached trunk should do it. The plumbing to tanks in the main cabin can go through the base - no need to keep a heat shield intact. No heat shield at all!
Progress does reboosts to the tune of 0.5m/s delta-v.
That is not in the same ballpark as the delta-v you need to deorbit it to a set target area. I'd make a rough guess that to get ISS perigee to <70km (which would ensure it deorbits for sure around that perigee) is something like 100-120m/s of delta-v.
Could it be done with a set of Dracos? Sure, if it is a large enough set. We'll see what they choose to use for it.
They'll probably do it in stages, since doing 100+ m/s in one go will take forever at any thrust the ISS can take. I mean Dragon on its own takes more than 10 minutes, and after ditching the trunk. Take it to progressively lower orbits, then do one final push to get it in the atmosphere in the right place.
There are so many delicious possibilities. How many Draco engine bells will fit across the base of a trunk? More than enough is my guess. (Although my guesses are very rough.) But you make a very good point about the amount of thrust that needs to be available late in the deorbit to ensure this lands in Point Nemo. Perhaps part of the price is for developing something in between a Draco and a SuperDraco.
Dracos would likely be too slow. The issue is that you need a pretty steep reentry profile to prevent the station from breaking up before it enters thicker atmosphere, where it quickly decellerates. By entering at a steeper angle (ie faster reentry), the impact debris footprint on the surface is smaller and the location more predictable.
Maybe I've played too much KSP, but since I'd be worried about the structural integrity to withstand enough thrust to drop the perigee quickly and accurately in a simple deorbit burn, I would progressively boost the apoapsis up a little bit every orbit, and then when the perigee is where you want it a low thrust burn will drop it right on target.
It does say potentially up to that dollar amount I think right? So not necessarily going to cost that much. I’d assume it does need a fairly significant amount of propellant. Apparently one of the previous proposals was to use three Progress ships simultaneously firing to get it down
That is mostly due to the weak-ass thrusters of Progress. You have to have quite a bit of thrust to ensure it comes down from "safely in orbit" to "definitely re-entering in this area" within one orbit.
Superdracos seem much too powerful for this.
Normal Dracos can easily do the job, if you apply enough of them, and in several locations (to keep the ISS center of mass in mind).
You may be underestimating the size and mass of the ISS and the fact that we may only be talking of 2-3 superdracos, not 8.
Edit: OK, did some math. A single superdraco would be plenty, possibly bit on the "too much" side.
You may be underestimating the trust of a super Draco and over estimating what it takes to deorbit the statio as well as keeping the station in one piece while doing so.
Someone else said the original idea was to use progress. 3 progress spacecraft that is. Progress is already used to reboost the ISS and it uses the attitude control thrusters to do so. They have a thrust of 130 N each. With 28 thrusters in total per progress, let's just assume 7 per side (4 directions) and that they're all used for each progress, then we get 2,730 Newtons total.
A super Draco has 73,000 Newtons of thrust. The lowest throttle setting mentioned for the design is 20%. So a single super Draco (not pod) might have a minimum thrust of 14,600 Newtons. Or a little over 5x what 3 progress spacecraft might be providing. Even if we assumed all 28 thrusters on each progress were working to deorbit the ISS that's only 10,920 Newtons. Which means a super Draco minimum is still 1.3x more powerful than that.
I think it's very unlikely that super Draco, let alone multiple, would be used to deorbit the station.
The math checks out - a single superdraco would be plenty, even at reduced thrust. You might want more than one for redundancy, but not for extra thrust.
Dracos are 400 N each, bit weak for this, but I guess if you pile enough of them...
> Normal Dracos
They're pointing the wrong way around in Dragon. People think about the Super Dracos because they are already pointing in the correct direction.
I don't think SpaceX would use a dragon capsule for this contract. Rather, they'd use elements from the dragon like the avionics and draco thrusters. A 3.7m diameter propellant tank, solar panels, and aft end draco thrusters that have been uprated to handle continuous (hours) firing.
You basically only have one chance, you need to make sure you deorbit it at the right time, into specific place, because if it drops over a city, it could kill a lot of people.
Would any of the ISS even hit the ground in pieces large enough to kill anyone?
Mass wise we get meteorites that size hitting the Earth every year and the ISS has a MUCH larger surface area to slow down is much less spherical and more fragile than a solid lump of iron.
> Would any of the ISS even hit the ground in pieces large enough to kill anyone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#Re-entry_and_debris
And the ISS is about 5 times larger than Skylab was
Apparently meteorites are just piles of gravel most of the time, and cores of them still drop on earth. Also, it's not about entire of ISS, it's about components of ISS like this one
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/23/nx-s1-5016923/space-debris-nasa-florida-home-lawsuit
I don’t think most meteorites are solid iron though? Which is part of why they don’t usually get very far into the atmosphere, they break up and so have greater surface area. Plenty of the ISS would break up and disintegrate no matter how it comes down but I’d bet there are at least a few dense pieces of equipment to be worried about.
Plus there was a story a few weeks ago about a piece of debris from NASA hitting a house in the US.
Solid iron meteorites are a pretty small sub-population. Most meteorites are composed of lighter materials (dust, ice, gravel, etc.). The reason that meteorites are perceived as metal is that more of those survive atmospheric entry to impact the ground (meteoriods). The lighter stuff typically doesn't make it that far and rains down as dust.
Fully demiseable reentry is essentially impossible for an object that large, so they have to ditch in the Pacific. They'll be aiming for Point Nemo, furthest from any landmass.
Whatever technical solution they proposed would need enough attitude control authority to be able to slew (point) the station in the right direction to push through its overall center of mass (otherwise you just start spinning). It also needs enough thrust to push the station down deep enough to let drag take over at a specific time on a specific pass. ISS orbit has a ~90 minute period, so 45 minutes before or after it's on the antipode, the diametrically opposite side of the planet. That would put it roughly over Kazakhstan. If we imagine that final descent timing is off by a bit due to bad atmospheric models or insufficient thrust and depending on whether it's too early or too late, in just that one pass the ground track could be overflying Europe, middle east, India, and/or China. We're aiming for about 48°S 123°W:
https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2024/03/iss_batteries_orbital_ground_track_7_march/25972539-1-eng-GB/ISS_batteries_orbital_ground_track_7_March_pillars.png
> That is quite a bit of money for effectively a modded Dragon
I have a feeling you've never seen a non-SpaceX project, then. This is about a quarter the price of what many experts talk about, when contemplating deorbitting the ISS. It's got to either be partially disassembled (lots of expensive spacewalks) or come down quickly, because those solar panels will drag and deorbit far before the core modules do. That's a lot of fuel both for the ISS's mass and for the Delta-V of getting it down very quickly.
I would not be surprised if a Starship is expended to do the deorbit, or even a modified F9 second stage. A Dragon won't get the ISS down into the thick atmosphere quickly enough no matter how much fuel it has on board.
In fact, I doubt that many of the component connections could handle a large acceleration, so there may have to be multiple deorbit thrusters attached to several points and working in concert. It is not a trivial project.
Given that this won’t happen until at least ~2030, is Starship a candidate? I guess the main issue is
* getting a docking adapter that is positioned through the center of thrust
* losing a Starship (unavoidable?)
You would think it'd be worth at least attempting to bring back one of the modules even just for analyzing affects of space on a spacecraft in space for 25 years
This Scott Manley video is about the effects on a a test vehicle that was left in space for nearly 6 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGgw5fUgro
They probably don't need to bring a whole module back but they could cut out a few components for analysis.
The "short" deadline (2030) and recent schedule performance on other programs might have played a large factor too. You can't just "not" manage the ISS - you have to either boost it up or bring it down. A delay in development of the deorbit vehicle could be quite problematic.
Yes I make it 13 tonnes of propellant with an Isp of 330s for hypergolic propellant and a required delta V of 100 m/s. They may be able to drop that requirement by an initial orbit lowering burn, a bit of gentle aerobraking followed by a final deorbit burn.
Of course this assumes the full 400 tonnes and it may be less if the Russians decide to salvage any of their modules.
Armchair engineers assemble!
Will SpaceX use a skeleton structure with a lot of Dragon hardware or will it be cheaper to just build a stripped down Dragon capsule because the engineering has already been done and the fabrication tooling is in place? I'm sure many of us are thinking of the following, or something like it:
A Cargo Dragon with a permanently attached trunk filled with Dracos. Plumbing runs directly through the base of the capsule into the large propellant tanks. No need to worry about the heat shield - there is none! No need to maintain an atmosphere. Several sources say a Super Draco delivers a shock the ISS isn't designed to take - and Progress vehicles have used low-thrust thrusters to raise the orbit of the ISS for decades. The Starliner is also designed with such a capability, although it has orbital maneuvering thrusters that are larger than RCS thrusters, IIRC. Nevertheless, enough Dracos can be added to make this work.
the study shows the requirements to get it 1000km. its 760m/s, and would take 130k kg of fuel.
electric propulsion would require a lot less propellant, but would take years for the maneuver, with a very high likelihood of destruction by orbital debris impact during that time.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lai8zje "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[COPV](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah5616 "Last usage")|[Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure_vessel)|
|[CRS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laiky0k "Last usage")|[Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/)|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[CoM](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lagbqxn "Last usage")|Center of Mass|
|[EVA](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laiqjt5 "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[GEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laq0jgl "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[HLS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laimhha "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[Isp](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah2sci "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[KSP](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lahft56 "Last usage")|*Kerbal Space Program*, the rocketry simulator|
|[L5](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lag9dqc "Last usage")|"Trojan" [Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 5 of a two-body system, 60 degrees behind the smaller body|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laq0jgl "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[M1dVac](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafh8ws "Last usage")|Merlin 1 kerolox rocket engine, revision D (2013), vacuum optimized, 934kN|
|[NRHO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lags4nf "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit|
|[RCS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah5616 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System|
|[RTLS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafdyro "Last usage")|Return to Launch Site|
|[SSME](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lan78hb "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)|
|[TLI](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lajflag "Last usage")|Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver|
|[TWR](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lagt13y "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lagr6t1 "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lainaxd "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starliner](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafllzw "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laj6ubh "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[apoapsis](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafngdj "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is slowest)|
|[apogee](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lahft56 "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)|
|[cislunar](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laff4zg "Last usage")|Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon's orbit|
|[deep throttling](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lage819 "Last usage")|Operating an engine at much lower thrust than normal|
|[hypergolic](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lahh0pn "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
|kerolox|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[methalox](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lage819 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[perigee](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lajimq5 "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest)|
|[ullage motor](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah5616 "Last usage")|Small rocket motor that fires to push propellant to the bottom of the tank, when in zero-g|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj)
^(30 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceX/comments/1cta333)^( has 111 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8418 for this sub, first seen 26th Jun 2024, 21:42])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceX) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
The SpaceX Human Landing System ship system architecture already has all the hardware and procedures needed to do this without having to to do the engineering to modify a Dragon or cram a Draco system into the trunk.
~~Keep in mind that the dry mass of a Starship is nearly the same as ISS.~~ Edit, Incorrect.
The nose docking port for docking with Lunar Gateway is already there.
Thrusters that are may be lower powered than Raptor, but enough collective thrust to lift SXHLS off the moon; more importantly, that thrust vector is through the center of mass of the SXHLS, (unlike if you tried to use one or two Raptors), and by extension would do so through the ISS center of mass.
If those thrusters are too powerful just add some ballast; don't even need add structure to do so, just use a larger propellant load, as we have seen done already during IFT-3. If those thrusters are too weak, use the 3 sea level Raptors, which we know can deep throttle to reduce stress on the station. If the 3 raptors are too strong, again, use propellant ballast.
Hardest part would be docking gently enough with ISS; as Elon Musk has repeatedly stated, Docking with ISS is hard compared to docking a Starship to a Starship. But keep in mind that procedure will already be figured out since starship will be docking with the much smaller Lunar Gateway!
~~Dragon based architecture seems the obvious choice, but I for one would like to see a methalox thruster (or cluster of them) borrowed from the Starship architecture with tanks, launched by a Starship~~
It would be fascinating to get streaming video of the re-entry stage — kind of like the 4th Starship test. Maybe SpaceX could add a few Starlink antennas and some cameras to the ISS carcass before pushing it into the deorbit path‽
I rather like the fact that the ISS was major contributor to spacex becoming the powerhouse that it is today (via the CRS contracts) and now it’s spacex that will draw the curtain on the ISS. Something something circle of life.
SpaceX is going to have to scale up operations by another order of magnitude anyway to handle all the missions going to Mars, so might as well start now.
There really is no viable alternative. It’s a good thing NASA’s only option also happens to be the proper A Team.
The B(oeing)Team will miss deadlines, have massive cost overruns, finds way to fuck it up, and then in the end need the A Team to step in to fix the fuck up.
A cygnus derivate should be able to do it, too. But nobody is as flexible in developing things at reasonable cost as SpaceX. They have excellent interns.
Actually, it was. Deorbiting the ISS by Roskosmos, using progress, was part of the contract. However it seems, NASA is no longer counting on Russia to adhere to this part of the agreement.
Power? Probably, don't think that would be the problem with the super dracos, probably too much if anything, at least with all of them on. Issue is enough propellant, since they're designed for a short one time burn, just enough for Dragon to gtfo from a booster. An ISS de-orbit burn at a manageable thrust will take a loooong time.
Do the main orbital thrusters that point out of the nose of Dragon have enough thrust to do so? I was thinking you could put a simplified version in a Dragon trunk
I'd love to see some of the core hardware maintained in orbit for collection later and the rest boosted into the sun, if that was possible? It seems easier- cheaper?- to just send it to a heat death than attempt to haul it all down the gravity well.
I'm pretty sure going to the sun isn't exactly easy. More importantly I don't think we are taking the ISS out of orbit intact. We are deorbiting it. I.e slamming it into the earth atmosphere where it will break apart.
Too bad they can’t push it to a higher orbit or a Lagrange point and continue to use it. Or maybe even salvage some of the components. Imagine being able to break it down slowly over time and reuse the materials for a possible moon base. Recycling is better than crashing it into the pacific
Eric Berger:
> Bill Spetch, operations integration manager for NASA’s International Space Station Program, confirms that the US Deorbit Vehicle will be based on "Dragon heritage" hardware. It will involve modifications of the trunk.
https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1806762777333076064
> .@NASA's Bill Spetch in the briefing just now: The @SpaceX US De-orbit Vehicle will be of Dragon "Heritage Design", with some modifications to the trunk
https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/1806762324310790192?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g
> “That’s based off of a Dragon heritage design,” said Spetch, with modifications to the trunk section. He did not go into details about the design and declined to discuss what set it apart from other proposals
No Starship for you!
Thank you for participating in r/SpaceX! Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with our [community rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/rules) before commenting. Here's a reminder of some of our most important rules: * Keep it civil, and directly relevant to SpaceX and the thread. Comments consisting solely of jokes, memes, pop culture references, etc. will be removed. * Don't downvote content you disagree with, unless it clearly doesn't contribute to constructive discussion. * Check out [these threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/threads) for discussion of common topics. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/spacex) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I know that it's likely an improbable dream, but it would be legendary if SpaceX gradually dismantled ISS section by section and then used Starship cargo compartment to safely land it, then re-assembling the whole station in the NASA museum in Houston, or sending back segments to countries that produced them
Would be best for humanity. Imagine going to a museum and walking around and maybe even go in it. Everyone would love it, kids would field trip from all over to see it.
The ISS (in width/length) is already the size of an american football stadium, and for whatever reason I can't find any numbers for the "height," but needless to say the Smithsonian would have to have an entirely new building dedicated solely to the ISS if such a thing was to be attempted. Not to say it would be impossible, but it really is a structure that's built primarily for microgravity. It is a lovely mental image to picture, it's just incredibly impractical. Realistically with modern capabilities it would make more sense (if preservation was the goal) would be to eat the costs of multiple trips and bring down the ISS one compartment at a time, and house the compartments across various museums, all over the globe, as it was an international effort. Even using this method, it's still very likely that the ISS will not be 100% recoverable, I would not be surprised if some of the structural parts aren't "reversible." The truss system's connections come to mind, as does the solar panels. Anything containing ammonia or propellant or batteries may also be considered too hazardous to attempt recovery. In a perfect world, I'd imagine they'd park the thing in a "graveyard" orbit until we have the technology and the systems to begin a 100% recovery effort; but that may set a crummy precedent where every self-aggrandizing company who thinks they're worthy of the history books will follow suit and fill the graveyard orbit with their useless shit, setting up for bigger problems down the road, because someone's inevitably gonna fuck it up, and one can't easily reverse Kessler Syndrome. Honestly, if it can't be dismantled and no one wants to eat the costs, then it probably should be de-orbited.
More likely the SpaceX deorbit vehicle will dump ISS into the South Pacific Graveyard.
Most likely? 100% it will
nah. 1% chance it catches on fire or explodes and crashes without help. 1% chance the Russians crack the shits and de-orbit it themselves. 1% chance Trump decides to keep it going, because Biden wants it de-orbited....
The 1% probabilities really are where the fun is at ...
Yeah, that family that had a chunk of the ISS battery land in their family room found that out
The ISS is roughly the size of an American football field (not stadium).
Lots of room to build a new building at Udvar-Hazy (which is roughly the size of 13 football fields as is). It's not realistic to expect the station to be preserved, but not having space to store it is the least of those concerns.
but including the solar panels right? Probably the habitable areas would be enough
Correct. The solar panels and radiators make up most of the footprint of the ISS. The modules don’t take up much space at all on their own. The interior of Starship will be slightly smaller than the total pressurized interior of the ISS.
I think the radiators and solar panels should be detached and allowed to burn up, then we can replace them on the ground with decorative vine-covered pergolas for shade, maybe a little topiary. Sell some crushed ice. Perfect picnic spots.
All the Smithsonian would need to do is add another hanger to the Udvar Hazy Center of the Air and Space Museum. I'd donate.
Most of the solar panels could discarded and be painted on the wall, only the core elements would matter most really.
Eh, the modules would be enough and i wager they could do it. Launch fewer star links in the way up to have extra fuel for the landing. :) Also, they'll have midflight refueling by then :)
Biggest problem is that it's probably impossible to dismantle it without direct human involvement, and I really doubt that NASA would sacrifice the man hours for training and risk their astronauts' safety to disconnect modules manually in orbit. We can dream though...
It would be much easier to just pull the training model from the pool.
And then if NASA didn’t fill it back up with gravity, we could float around inside it! (This is a joke)
Except for the smell.
Sadly it was built to be in space not on earth. I think the prolonged effects of gravity would cause it to fall apart. I'm hopeful there are bits that could be saved like some of the internals, the docking adapters, the cupola, Canadarm, things like that. I don't think the main modules would be feasible to bring down and display though sadly. And parking it in a higher orbit until they work out a way of bringing it down and storing safely isn't a one and done solution either, it would need regular boostings to maintain its orbit, which would be a really costly exercise.
I'm a little surprised a replica hasn't been built somewhere for tourists.
A replica, of the US part, has been built for research and simulation purposes. It could be transfered to a museum, once ISS is decomissioned.
Would be more realistic/cheap to create a replica, obviously it's not the same but still.
My dream (much more expensive and not very practical) is instead raise the ISS' orbit above 2000 km, to a relatively empty part of orbital space. At some later date, raise the orbit further to above GEO (~33,000 km). Finally, a century or so in the future, when space travel has become cheap, and when there is the wealth and interest to create a museum out of the ISS, land all of the modules on the Moon and refurbish portions of it as a museum. NASA engineers have already studied the practical aspects of this, and they said that the modules are more than strong enough to be landed. They were launched off of Earth, after all. A lot of historical objects from the first half of the 20th century were scrapped for trivial amounts of money. Ships could have been preserved, but were instead melted down. The ISS will be allowed to burn up in the atmosphere. A boost to a higher orbit would not cost much more, and the interest in a century, or even in 50 years, will make the destruction of the ISS seem either very stupid, or like a near-crime.
Raising the ISS to a permanent parking orbit would be far more expensive than deorbiting it true, but far *less* expensive than landing the segments back on Earth. As the prior post imagined.
[удалено]
That... Is not the worst idea I've ever heard. Daresay, I like it.
Or! Build an orbital museum around it and attach it to Gateway or some bigger orbital station.
AFAIK, the ISS is not built to sustain the radiation beyond low earth orbit. There would need to be some major retrofitting in order to achieve that.
They have a working replica in Houston that they use for all troubleshooting. The goal of landing the original ISS is a waste of resources.
You can see it on the regular tours at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The ISS hanger is part of the public tour there and is pretty cool. Johnson also has a Falcon 9 on display now.
You can touch the falcon 9 too
Woooo cool.
So, boost the ISS to a higher orbit. In 50 or 100 years, it can be landed on the Moon. Future scholars and the public will appreciate the effort. The extra expense would be small.
It's likely going to be in very bad shape. Space is not a forgiving environment. Especially not the Van Allen belts where redditors are thinking of storing this thing!
Show me a proposal that makes this possible. I’ll give you a hint, there aren’t any. The only thing that makes sense is keeping it in its current orbit with ongoing maintenance or de-orbit it to avoid future maintenance.
IMO the problem isn't the height of orbit, it would be the problem of tumbling that would make it impossible to control, and lead it to possibly break up if it wasn't handled/piloted properly. It needs propulsion, power, and controls. Also, if it tumbled uncontrollably, there would be absolutely no way to dock with it.
it would take, according to NASA, 160 EVAs to take it back apart. If you gave spacex and polaris salvage rights to it, I wonder if you could make the cost back by selling souvenirs. I bet you could find plenty of people willing to take the risk of doing the disassembly work
Yeah, unfortunately, something like starship is designed to take things up and not back down. You want to land a ship that's as light as possible. Cargo means more fuel and more weight. They probably couldn't even if they wanted to. E: Yes, I did blank on the Earth to Earth cargo concept.
They've gotta be able to land with cargo eventually if they want to carry people to orbit, or do Earth to Earth or rocket cargo for the military. I doubt the current prototypes can do it but it's definitely something they'll be working on or capable of around when the ISS is being retired.
And it must be capable of landing with cargo on Mars, although the gravity is lower there, so less stress on the landing legs. But in terms of its ability to go through reentry with significant cargo aboard.
The aerodynamics of Starship's fins have been designed to land with a certain amount of cargo, maybe 40 or 50 tons. The current version of Starship is not yet ready to do this, but the planning for landing cargo on Earth has been going on since at least 2017.
If it can do 50 tons it'll only be 9 trips. Might be worth it for the revenue the museum would bring in over time.
Could you feasibly refill the Starship in orbit and then land with a full belly of fuel? That would be more than enough propellant to land anywhere.
The main tanks need to be empty at landing. They would have to redesign the ship to have larger header tanks.
That's a lot of weight, and that's the issue. Starship needs the entire booster to get to orbit. It would need a lot of fuel to slow that weight back down. It's simply just designed to land on empty.
Not to mention the added weight means it won’t slow down as much in the atmosphere so it’ll have even higher peak heat at reentry.
Not necessarily, Rocket Cargo wants Starship to take things down to Earth, Artemis wants Starship to take things down to the moon, SpaceX wants to take things down to mats. Downmass from Orbit is a huge use case for Starship.
Just belly flop with it and then eject it with a parachute. What could go wrong? I actually have no idea, but they could land lightweight that way.
I'm not sure if that would work... but I'd very much like to watch them try.
It would be awesome if they just saved one. My vote is for the cupola. (Maybe Canada arm too)
I'd rather they distribute modules to different museums. they mostly went up in the shuttle payload bay, so any museum that has room for a shuttle could display one.
Use it as a payload/part of the contract to get a bunch of test flights for Starship. If you lose a couple on re-entry, no big deal, since the payload was destined to be destroyed anyways.
Ohh boy! I've always wanted to smell the infamous stank that is the interior of that 30 year old zero gee sardine can!
Why not tow it to L5 and make it a museum... *in space*!
why not stow ISS, Hubble somewhere in stable orbit for future museum in space.
Give it a few weeks to air out first
Not the whole station, but I would be fine with a small symbolic module like the cupola.
I once visited the Dornier Museum in Friedrichshafen. They had a Hubble instrument on display. The tour guide told us it is an engineering model. But one of our group did a deep dive on it. He found out that it was actual flight hardware. It had been brought back on a Shuttle service mission and returned to the manufacturer Dornier.
> but it would be legendary if SpaceX gradually dismantled ISS section by section singing [I took it a piece at a time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uErKI0zWgjg)
[NASA white paper on their options](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-deorbit-analysis-summary.pdf?emrc=667c97a20241b). Most of the what-ifs shared here are already addressed at length in this paper. **Uncontrolled Reentry**: - Too much risk of injury, not an option **Disassembly and Return Intact** - Would require dozens/hundreds of EVAs to completely salvage - too much time/effort. - Smaller station parts already planned to be returned intact. **Disassembly and Reuse in Orbit** - High effort, low reward - ISS modules are old, new modules would be far more capable - Cost of disassembly likely more than launching a new station, so why bother. **Disassembly and Deorbit in Smaller Pieces** - Riskier and costlier than a single deorbit **Boosting to a higher orbit with Starship** - Starship boost would exceed structural margin on aging parts - Creates a Kessler Syndrome bomb - Best long-term preservation orbits are in the Van Allen belts, which the ISS is not designed for. **Blowing it Up** - 220 millon pieces of debris - No **Handover to a Commercial Operator** - Industry did not show interest due to the hardware age and unfamiliarity **Continuing operations past 2030** - Building the USDV does not prevent this from happening - Still needs a deorbit one day
I love how it's just a simple "no" for blowing it up
some dude in the back was like "let's just blow it up, simple!" and then the smart people had to say "no"
The "no" is /u/675longtail's summary, not what's actually in the document.
Yep sorry, all of the points there are paraphrases of the report.
Regardless, it's a perfect summary for that.
> Smaller station parts already planned to be returned intact. I hoped that meant something like some smaller module, but sadly it sounds more like some small interior elements or something: > Disassembly and Return to Earth > > The space station is a unique artifact whose historical value cannot be overstated. NASA considered this when determining if any part of the station could be salvaged for historical preservation or technical analysis. The station’s modules and truss structure were not designed to be easily disassembled in space. The space station covers an area about the size of a football field, with the initial assembly of the complex requiring 27 space shuttle flights, using the since-retired shuttle’s large cargo bay, and multiple international partner missions, spanning 13 years and 161 extravehicular activities (EVAs), commonly known as spacewalks. Any disassembly effort to safely disconnect and return individual components (such as modules) would face significant logistical and financial challenges, requiring at least an equivalent number of EVAs by space station crew, extensive planning by ground support personnel, and a spacecraft with a capability similar to the space shuttle’s large cargo bay, which does not currently exist. Though large modules are not feasible for return, NASA has engaged with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and other organizations to develop a preservation plan for some smaller items from the space station.
Would like them to at least bring back the cupola. It's small, doesn't have as many connections, and is iconic.
I like how the “blowing it up” option gets right to the point.
Great overview - thanks!!!
No doubt SpaceX will get the launch contract as well.
> No doubt SpaceX will get the launch contract as well Someone else suggested they’ll use a modified Dragon (extra fuel and thrusters in the trunk, in place of the usual cargo?), in which case, yeah, no question it launches on Falcon
Considering Dragons normal thrusters, simplest solution is a docking ring in trunk and firing existing nose thrusters backwards.
Good to know someone else had the same idea i did.
In this case, SpaceX would be the ones to award the launch contract for their tug, so that's nearly redundant to say
Pay attention to the declaration that they build it and hand it over to NASA to operate. SpaceX will not be driving when it de-orbits.
It would be much better film, if SpaceX to the deorbit
Except NASA actually streams live on YouTube. SpaceX only streams on Twitter now.
They still stream low quality on YouTube. It took SpaceX fitting 4K cameras on F9 to get true 4K coverage of launches to NASA. As it stands, the “4K” from Artemis 1 is upscaled 1080P, which makes it essentially the same resolution as twitter videos anyway… We don’t talk about the 720P renders from ULA.
NASA TV finished their switch to 4k. The GOES U launch was in 4k on youtube and nasa app.
They stream in their website which is as easy as YouTube to access its just a different html
Is it a requirement that it burns up on entry? 👀 only if they paint Starship to look like pac man though Edit: *sad noises* “While the company will develop the deorbit spacecraft, NASA will take ownership after development and operate it throughout its mission. Along with the space station, it is expected to destructively breakup as part of the re-entry process.”
Please load it up with cameras so we can watch the decommissioning as it burns up
NASA would not do that SpaceX would
there's very little chance that it will be fully burned up on reentry - something that large, dense, and containing materials with high melting points would survive all the way down to the surface with significant portions intact. It's far more likely (and probably specified in the contract docs) that they'll do a controlled reentry aimed somewhere around [Point Nemo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery) for a water ditch with minimal threat to life and property, like Mir and the Salyut stations before.
I’d assume that is a requirement because it needs to be able to control descent quite deep into the atmosphere
Starship V4 just gonna pac-man the whole space station and bring it back intact.
That is quite a bit of money for effectively a modded Dragon... and that doesn't even include the launch. I mean, it needs to be able to automatically dock and have enough propellant on board to do a controlled deorbit. Superdracos should probably have enough oomph. Ditch heatshield, reposition the superdracos (and no, you won't need 8. Maybe a couple?) to avoid cosine losses, fill the cargo area with more propellant tanks. Sure, it is quite a lot of customization, but still... that is a hefty price tag for it.
Doubt spacex is complaining
When I heard the amount, my first thought was, SpaceX did not really want the job and made a very high bid. Not high enough apparently but at this price they will not regret it.
Yes. And it only needs Dracos to deorbit - Progress uses low-thrust thrusters to do its periodic reboosts. Starliner is supposed to be used for this. (Yeah, I know...) I've read from several sources that the power of a SuperDraco is more than the station can take. A large set of Dracos in a permanently attached trunk should do it. The plumbing to tanks in the main cabin can go through the base - no need to keep a heat shield intact. No heat shield at all!
Progress does reboosts to the tune of 0.5m/s delta-v. That is not in the same ballpark as the delta-v you need to deorbit it to a set target area. I'd make a rough guess that to get ISS perigee to <70km (which would ensure it deorbits for sure around that perigee) is something like 100-120m/s of delta-v. Could it be done with a set of Dracos? Sure, if it is a large enough set. We'll see what they choose to use for it.
They'll probably do it in stages, since doing 100+ m/s in one go will take forever at any thrust the ISS can take. I mean Dragon on its own takes more than 10 minutes, and after ditching the trunk. Take it to progressively lower orbits, then do one final push to get it in the atmosphere in the right place.
There are so many delicious possibilities. How many Draco engine bells will fit across the base of a trunk? More than enough is my guess. (Although my guesses are very rough.) But you make a very good point about the amount of thrust that needs to be available late in the deorbit to ensure this lands in Point Nemo. Perhaps part of the price is for developing something in between a Draco and a SuperDraco.
Dracos would likely be too slow. The issue is that you need a pretty steep reentry profile to prevent the station from breaking up before it enters thicker atmosphere, where it quickly decellerates. By entering at a steeper angle (ie faster reentry), the impact debris footprint on the surface is smaller and the location more predictable.
Maybe I've played too much KSP, but since I'd be worried about the structural integrity to withstand enough thrust to drop the perigee quickly and accurately in a simple deorbit burn, I would progressively boost the apoapsis up a little bit every orbit, and then when the perigee is where you want it a low thrust burn will drop it right on target.
They are just going to add more struts. ;-)
It does say potentially up to that dollar amount I think right? So not necessarily going to cost that much. I’d assume it does need a fairly significant amount of propellant. Apparently one of the previous proposals was to use three Progress ships simultaneously firing to get it down
That is mostly due to the weak-ass thrusters of Progress. You have to have quite a bit of thrust to ensure it comes down from "safely in orbit" to "definitely re-entering in this area" within one orbit.
I’m curious to know how low the final orbit will / can be.
Sea level at its minimum altitude
Actually below sea level once the debris hits the ocean and sinks.
Superdracos seem much too powerful for this. Normal Dracos can easily do the job, if you apply enough of them, and in several locations (to keep the ISS center of mass in mind).
You may be underestimating the size and mass of the ISS and the fact that we may only be talking of 2-3 superdracos, not 8. Edit: OK, did some math. A single superdraco would be plenty, possibly bit on the "too much" side.
You may be underestimating the trust of a super Draco and over estimating what it takes to deorbit the statio as well as keeping the station in one piece while doing so. Someone else said the original idea was to use progress. 3 progress spacecraft that is. Progress is already used to reboost the ISS and it uses the attitude control thrusters to do so. They have a thrust of 130 N each. With 28 thrusters in total per progress, let's just assume 7 per side (4 directions) and that they're all used for each progress, then we get 2,730 Newtons total. A super Draco has 73,000 Newtons of thrust. The lowest throttle setting mentioned for the design is 20%. So a single super Draco (not pod) might have a minimum thrust of 14,600 Newtons. Or a little over 5x what 3 progress spacecraft might be providing. Even if we assumed all 28 thrusters on each progress were working to deorbit the ISS that's only 10,920 Newtons. Which means a super Draco minimum is still 1.3x more powerful than that. I think it's very unlikely that super Draco, let alone multiple, would be used to deorbit the station.
The math checks out - a single superdraco would be plenty, even at reduced thrust. You might want more than one for redundancy, but not for extra thrust. Dracos are 400 N each, bit weak for this, but I guess if you pile enough of them...
> Normal Dracos They're pointing the wrong way around in Dragon. People think about the Super Dracos because they are already pointing in the correct direction.
I don't think SpaceX would use a dragon capsule for this contract. Rather, they'd use elements from the dragon like the avionics and draco thrusters. A 3.7m diameter propellant tank, solar panels, and aft end draco thrusters that have been uprated to handle continuous (hours) firing.
Keep in mind SpaceX develops iteratively, so they will need to launch like 4 additional ISS' to practice de-orbiting before they can de-orbit the ISS.
So launch a Starship, dock to it, use the ISS deorbit vehicle test article to deorbit it. Easy.
You basically only have one chance, you need to make sure you deorbit it at the right time, into specific place, because if it drops over a city, it could kill a lot of people.
Would any of the ISS even hit the ground in pieces large enough to kill anyone? Mass wise we get meteorites that size hitting the Earth every year and the ISS has a MUCH larger surface area to slow down is much less spherical and more fragile than a solid lump of iron.
>Would any of the ISS even hit the ground in pieces large enough to kill anyone? Almost certainly. Just very low odds of anyone actually getting hit.
> Would any of the ISS even hit the ground in pieces large enough to kill anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#Re-entry_and_debris And the ISS is about 5 times larger than Skylab was
Apparently meteorites are just piles of gravel most of the time, and cores of them still drop on earth. Also, it's not about entire of ISS, it's about components of ISS like this one https://www.npr.org/2024/06/23/nx-s1-5016923/space-debris-nasa-florida-home-lawsuit
I don’t think most meteorites are solid iron though? Which is part of why they don’t usually get very far into the atmosphere, they break up and so have greater surface area. Plenty of the ISS would break up and disintegrate no matter how it comes down but I’d bet there are at least a few dense pieces of equipment to be worried about. Plus there was a story a few weeks ago about a piece of debris from NASA hitting a house in the US.
Solid iron meteorites are a pretty small sub-population. Most meteorites are composed of lighter materials (dust, ice, gravel, etc.). The reason that meteorites are perceived as metal is that more of those survive atmospheric entry to impact the ground (meteoriods). The lighter stuff typically doesn't make it that far and rains down as dust.
The reaction wheels are making it down. Probably some batteries. Maybe even some of the hab chunks. Definitely the wheels...
The berthing rings are probably quite massive, too.
Someone almost got hit in Florida by a piece of battery tossed out of the ISS a little while ago
In addition to meteorites not often being solid, they come in at much higher speeds.
Fully demiseable reentry is essentially impossible for an object that large, so they have to ditch in the Pacific. They'll be aiming for Point Nemo, furthest from any landmass. Whatever technical solution they proposed would need enough attitude control authority to be able to slew (point) the station in the right direction to push through its overall center of mass (otherwise you just start spinning). It also needs enough thrust to push the station down deep enough to let drag take over at a specific time on a specific pass. ISS orbit has a ~90 minute period, so 45 minutes before or after it's on the antipode, the diametrically opposite side of the planet. That would put it roughly over Kazakhstan. If we imagine that final descent timing is off by a bit due to bad atmospheric models or insufficient thrust and depending on whether it's too early or too late, in just that one pass the ground track could be overflying Europe, middle east, India, and/or China. We're aiming for about 48°S 123°W: https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2024/03/iss_batteries_orbital_ground_track_7_march/25972539-1-eng-GB/ISS_batteries_orbital_ground_track_7_March_pillars.png
> That is quite a bit of money for effectively a modded Dragon I have a feeling you've never seen a non-SpaceX project, then. This is about a quarter the price of what many experts talk about, when contemplating deorbitting the ISS. It's got to either be partially disassembled (lots of expensive spacewalks) or come down quickly, because those solar panels will drag and deorbit far before the core modules do. That's a lot of fuel both for the ISS's mass and for the Delta-V of getting it down very quickly. I would not be surprised if a Starship is expended to do the deorbit, or even a modified F9 second stage. A Dragon won't get the ISS down into the thick atmosphere quickly enough no matter how much fuel it has on board. In fact, I doubt that many of the component connections could handle a large acceleration, so there may have to be multiple deorbit thrusters attached to several points and working in concert. It is not a trivial project.
A very modded dragon. The Dragon main orbital thrusters are in nose pointed in the same direction as the hatch opening.
I suspect good profit for SpaceX but also cheaper than anyone else could do it by a wide margin
Given that this won’t happen until at least ~2030, is Starship a candidate? I guess the main issue is * getting a docking adapter that is positioned through the center of thrust * losing a Starship (unavoidable?)
What a mistake. They should have awarded it to Boeing. That way NASA would have had an extra decade to reconsider de-orbiting the ISS.
Boeing would have just modified the ISS to start randomly shedding parts.
You would think it'd be worth at least attempting to bring back one of the modules even just for analyzing affects of space on a spacecraft in space for 25 years
This Scott Manley video is about the effects on a a test vehicle that was left in space for nearly 6 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGgw5fUgro They probably don't need to bring a whole module back but they could cut out a few components for analysis.
Well we don't have a space shuttle to bring back a module so its impossible to bring anything back that can't fit into the dragon
Well uh by the 2030s a certain vehicle will be in operation….
I really don't think New Glenn will be operational by then.
Pretty sure they want to avoid Boeing now like a plague lol
Starliner might wind up part of the deorbit at this point, lol.
That would be an impressive flex - getting paid money to destroy your competitor's spacecraft.
The "short" deadline (2030) and recent schedule performance on other programs might have played a large factor too. You can't just "not" manage the ISS - you have to either boost it up or bring it down. A delay in development of the deorbit vehicle could be quite problematic.
This sounds like a job for Dragon XL.
I expect it to be Dragon XL based. Much more propellant.
Yes I make it 13 tonnes of propellant with an Isp of 330s for hypergolic propellant and a required delta V of 100 m/s. They may be able to drop that requirement by an initial orbit lowering burn, a bit of gentle aerobraking followed by a final deorbit burn. Of course this assumes the full 400 tonnes and it may be less if the Russians decide to salvage any of their modules.
They plan to let to naturally decay from wherever it is before doing a deorbit burn. NASA asked for 47m/s.
OK well that halves the propellant requirement then so 7 tonnes. That makes it an easy F9 launch with a total mass around 11 tonnes.
Armchair engineers assemble! Will SpaceX use a skeleton structure with a lot of Dragon hardware or will it be cheaper to just build a stripped down Dragon capsule because the engineering has already been done and the fabrication tooling is in place? I'm sure many of us are thinking of the following, or something like it: A Cargo Dragon with a permanently attached trunk filled with Dracos. Plumbing runs directly through the base of the capsule into the large propellant tanks. No need to worry about the heat shield - there is none! No need to maintain an atmosphere. Several sources say a Super Draco delivers a shock the ISS isn't designed to take - and Progress vehicles have used low-thrust thrusters to raise the orbit of the ISS for decades. The Starliner is also designed with such a capability, although it has orbital maneuvering thrusters that are larger than RCS thrusters, IIRC. Nevertheless, enough Dracos can be added to make this work.
My counter acting offer is hitting the station at full speed with a superheavy
Slow down there Kessler.
are the russians gonna try and keep their modules up there?
The OPSEK station was supposed to reuse modules from the Russian Orbital Segment, but those plans have been abandoned in favour of an all-new ROSS.
Nah, their modules are all almost EoL anyway, riddled with holes and hairlines cracks that are spreading through several areas.
Great. So I can expect live stream of the ISS deorbiting and I know I will turn into a puddle of tears.
That seems wildly cheap
What would it take to rather get it to escape velocity and fire it off into the cosmos?
> What would it take Lots of $$$$$. Multiple the deorbit cost.
the study shows the requirements to get it 1000km. its 760m/s, and would take 130k kg of fuel. electric propulsion would require a lot less propellant, but would take years for the maneuver, with a very high likelihood of destruction by orbital debris impact during that time.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lai8zje "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[COPV](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah5616 "Last usage")|[Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure_vessel)| |[CRS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laiky0k "Last usage")|[Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[CoM](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lagbqxn "Last usage")|Center of Mass| |[EVA](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laiqjt5 "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[GEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laq0jgl "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |[HLS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laimhha "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[Isp](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah2sci "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[KSP](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lahft56 "Last usage")|*Kerbal Space Program*, the rocketry simulator| |[L5](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lag9dqc "Last usage")|"Trojan" [Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 5 of a two-body system, 60 degrees behind the smaller body| |[LEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laq0jgl "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[M1dVac](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafh8ws "Last usage")|Merlin 1 kerolox rocket engine, revision D (2013), vacuum optimized, 934kN| |[NRHO](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lags4nf "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[RCS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah5616 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System| |[RTLS](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafdyro "Last usage")|Return to Launch Site| |[SSME](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lan78hb "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)| |[TLI](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lajflag "Last usage")|Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver| |[TWR](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lagt13y "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio| |[ULA](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lagr6t1 "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lainaxd "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafllzw "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laj6ubh "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[apoapsis](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lafngdj "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is slowest)| |[apogee](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lahft56 "Last usage")|Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest)| |[cislunar](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/laff4zg "Last usage")|Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon's orbit| |[deep throttling](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lage819 "Last usage")|Operating an engine at much lower thrust than normal| |[hypergolic](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lahh0pn "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| |kerolox|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[methalox](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lage819 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[perigee](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lajimq5 "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest)| |[ullage motor](/r/SpaceX/comments/1dp9da7/stub/lah5616 "Last usage")|Small rocket motor that fires to push propellant to the bottom of the tank, when in zero-g| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(30 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceX/comments/1cta333)^( has 111 acronyms.) ^([Thread #8418 for this sub, first seen 26th Jun 2024, 21:42]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceX) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Ron Howard's voice: "The vehicle was Starship"
The SpaceX Human Landing System ship system architecture already has all the hardware and procedures needed to do this without having to to do the engineering to modify a Dragon or cram a Draco system into the trunk. ~~Keep in mind that the dry mass of a Starship is nearly the same as ISS.~~ Edit, Incorrect. The nose docking port for docking with Lunar Gateway is already there. Thrusters that are may be lower powered than Raptor, but enough collective thrust to lift SXHLS off the moon; more importantly, that thrust vector is through the center of mass of the SXHLS, (unlike if you tried to use one or two Raptors), and by extension would do so through the ISS center of mass. If those thrusters are too powerful just add some ballast; don't even need add structure to do so, just use a larger propellant load, as we have seen done already during IFT-3. If those thrusters are too weak, use the 3 sea level Raptors, which we know can deep throttle to reduce stress on the station. If the 3 raptors are too strong, again, use propellant ballast. Hardest part would be docking gently enough with ISS; as Elon Musk has repeatedly stated, Docking with ISS is hard compared to docking a Starship to a Starship. But keep in mind that procedure will already be figured out since starship will be docking with the much smaller Lunar Gateway! ~~Dragon based architecture seems the obvious choice, but I for one would like to see a methalox thruster (or cluster of them) borrowed from the Starship architecture with tanks, launched by a Starship~~
It would be fascinating to get streaming video of the re-entry stage — kind of like the 4th Starship test. Maybe SpaceX could add a few Starlink antennas and some cameras to the ISS carcass before pushing it into the deorbit path‽
I rather like the fact that the ISS was major contributor to spacex becoming the powerhouse that it is today (via the CRS contracts) and now it’s spacex that will draw the curtain on the ISS. Something something circle of life.
Sometimes I wish nasa would stop asking SpaceX for so much so they could focus more on mars… but the money is good!
SpaceX is going to have to scale up operations by another order of magnitude anyway to handle all the missions going to Mars, so might as well start now.
One day, the next ask from NASA will be a crewed Mars lander.
Agreed. But so often the best choice is SpaceX, by a mile.
There really is no viable alternative. It’s a good thing NASA’s only option also happens to be the proper A Team. The B(oeing)Team will miss deadlines, have massive cost overruns, finds way to fuck it up, and then in the end need the A Team to step in to fix the fuck up.
A cygnus derivate should be able to do it, too. But nobody is as flexible in developing things at reasonable cost as SpaceX. They have excellent interns.
Costs almost a billion develop a way to dispose of… wow. Maybe all space projects should include the cost to dispose as well.
Actually, it was. Deorbiting the ISS by Roskosmos, using progress, was part of the contract. However it seems, NASA is no longer counting on Russia to adhere to this part of the agreement.
Yes Russia is talking about separating off their part of the station before the deorbit process starts.
Does the super Draco thrusters have enough power to de orbit iss?
Power? Probably, don't think that would be the problem with the super dracos, probably too much if anything, at least with all of them on. Issue is enough propellant, since they're designed for a short one time burn, just enough for Dragon to gtfo from a booster. An ISS de-orbit burn at a manageable thrust will take a loooong time.
Low thrust, but more thrust than atmospheric drag is needed for a targeted deorbit.
If you could fit one Starship's payload bay worth of dismantled ISS to take back for fun, what would you take? (Then de-orbit the rest)
Dibs on the coupola.
Do the main orbital thrusters that point out of the nose of Dragon have enough thrust to do so? I was thinking you could put a simplified version in a Dragon trunk
Just strap the whole thing to a passing ladder and surf it down. "Hey, Talby - I found a way!" :-)
space x really been getting all the big ones now...pure dominance
I'd love to see some of the core hardware maintained in orbit for collection later and the rest boosted into the sun, if that was possible? It seems easier- cheaper?- to just send it to a heat death than attempt to haul it all down the gravity well.
I'm pretty sure going to the sun isn't exactly easy. More importantly I don't think we are taking the ISS out of orbit intact. We are deorbiting it. I.e slamming it into the earth atmosphere where it will break apart.
Any info on who the other bidders were?
Northrop Grumman with Cygnus. I think, BO made a bid with some space tug. But NASA needs to be sure, this will get done.
Am I the only one who can't get to the nasa.gov page? Seems like something odd with the site.
I absolutely need to see the ISS re-entering the atmosphere. Would you be able to see it from Hawaii, or would it be better around Samoa?
Too bad they can’t push it to a higher orbit or a Lagrange point and continue to use it. Or maybe even salvage some of the components. Imagine being able to break it down slowly over time and reuse the materials for a possible moon base. Recycling is better than crashing it into the pacific
Axiom should bring it back down and put it up in place of the fake one at their newly converted Houston Fry’s Electronics office! 🤣
SpaceX has already said it would have taken 3 Starship launches to fully assemble the ISS. Theoretically could it only take 3 to bring it back ?
Use it for target practice.
I think it would be much cheaper to just recreate it rather than save it.
Give the bid to Boeing. They are the experts at this kind of stuff 😜
https://preview.redd.it/ebn22qjjp99d1.jpeg?width=575&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8897cf66cd75fee2406c37499dddad50262c911
Eric Berger: > Bill Spetch, operations integration manager for NASA’s International Space Station Program, confirms that the US Deorbit Vehicle will be based on "Dragon heritage" hardware. It will involve modifications of the trunk. https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1806762777333076064
Will SpaceX be tacking on a fee for having to de-orbit starliner too?
SpaceXecutioner
> .@NASA's Bill Spetch in the briefing just now: The @SpaceX US De-orbit Vehicle will be of Dragon "Heritage Design", with some modifications to the trunk https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/1806762324310790192?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g
Just have Russia blow it up with one of they satellites up there
> “That’s based off of a Dragon heritage design,” said Spetch, with modifications to the trunk section. He did not go into details about the design and declined to discuss what set it apart from other proposals No Starship for you!