SpaceX 's Dragon super spacecraft to lower the ISS station from orbit is a variant of the Dragon spacecraft. This super spacecraft will carry 46 Drago thrusters to the ISS and from there take this space station to its resting place in the south Pacific Ocean in the next decade.
This number of thrusters is 3 times more than what a normal Cargo Dragon cargo ship carries to the ISS, according to SpaceX.
“The vehicle design will be based on SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft, with a modified fuselage to accommodate propellant tanks, engines, avionics, generators and hardware heat is designed to complete this mission" - Sarah Walker, Director of SpaceX's Dragon mission management, informed.
Although the ISS space station is still operating well, NASA has planned to end the mission of this outpost beyond Earth's orbit.
Earlier this year, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth $843 million to build a Dragon orbital separation spacecraft to bring the ISS to its resting place.
SpaceX's Cargo Dragon spacecraft has been carrying out unmanned resupply missions to the ISS since 2012, while the Crew Dragon spacecraft has been carrying astronauts into space since 2020.
The ISS is expected to gradually fall back to Earth over about 12 to 18 months before a final deorbit is performed, bringing the space station closer to Earth.
This time, the Dragon super spacecraft is expected to fire from 22 to 26 engines at the same time. The contract between NASA and SpaceX requires that this launch create a force with a speed of about 57 m/s, or about 205 km/h.
To generate such force would require a larger Dragon spacecraft, specifically designed for this unprecedented mission. According to Ms. Walker, the section providing propulsion, electricity and other essential equipment of the Dragon super spacecraft will be twice as large as the section on the standard Dragon cargo ship. "This vehicle needs a lot of propellant, it needs a lot of engines to provide a lot of thrust to push the ISS," she said.
On the ISS space station, NASA is responsible for the US ISS segment. The other main modules in this orbiting complex belong to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. On this station, the Canadian Space Agency has robots.
The South Pacific is one of the prime locations for the ISS modules that SpaceX will detach from orbit, but NASA has not yet decided where the ISS will rest.
Most parts of the ISS will burn up safely in Earth's atmosphere . NASA and other space agencies still have no plans to launch a mission to salvage the ISS.
Dana Weigel - NASA's ISS program director - said that NASA has required the vehicle to separate the ISS space station from orbit to handle debris extremely strictly. The goal is to distribute the debris over a route no more than 2,000 kilometers wide, using "very large thrust and very strong burn" like SpaceX's Dragon super spacecraft will provide.
