[HN Gopher] SpaceX to deliver vehicle to deorbit International S...
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SpaceX to deliver vehicle to deorbit International Space Station
Author : ironyman
Score : 49 points
Date : 2024-06-26 21:35 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nasa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nasa.gov)
| bell-cot wrote:
| > NASA announced SpaceX has been selected to _develop and_
| [emphasis mine] deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will
| provide the capability to deorbit the space station and ensure
| avoidance of risk to populated areas.
|
| > The single-award contract has a total potential value of $843
| million. The launch service for the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will be
| a future procurement.
|
| So...with $843M, what could SpaceX come up with? In Gwynne's
| shoes, I'd be looking to develop a vehicle with far wider
| application than a 1-off LEO deorbit burn.
|
| And, given the inability of most of SpaceX's competition to
| reliably delivery anything to orbit, I suspect that NASA has
| similar hopes.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Such a shame. Can't we dismantle it and bring the pieces down
| in Starship flights? The American parts would look great at the
| Udvar Hazi. As for others, each one can be delivered to its
| country of origin.
|
| I'm assuming anything that did fit in a shuttle could fit
| inside a Starship.
|
| Not sure Russians would like that though. I'm betting they
| would prefer their pieces deorbited.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I'm not sure how much they can carry on re-entry. More
| heating etc., and more weight when doing the landing.
| codeulike wrote:
| Its going to be Starship again surely, with the right docking
| stuff to attach to the ISS.
|
| Or a modified Dragon?
| abracadaniel wrote:
| Modified Dragon seems like the simplest option. Dock and then
| burn retrogade while attached. Probably not nearly that
| simple in reality though.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Couldn't we put it in a super long orbit that means it will
| revisit earth in a million years or something? Might be a nice
| surprise for whoever is around at that point.
| adolph wrote:
| Like Snoopy!
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/astronomers-
| might...
| nickff wrote:
| It's considered unwise to leave uncontrolled vehicles in
| orbit, as they may hit other uncontrolled vehicles (or
| natural objects) and create debris.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| An orbit like parent post is talking about is _barely_ an
| orbit and more like an escape trajectory that just barely
| fails to escape.
| nirav72 wrote:
| Would need lot of extra fuel to raise altitude for an
| escape trajectory. Fuel either brought up the gravity
| well at launch or later refueled in orbit. Of course not
| all satellites are designed to allow in-orbit refueling.
| Maybe an reusable orbital tug might be something that
| someone will come up with.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Yeah, but this is the ISS we're talking about. Obsolete
| commsat number 723, sure, no one's going to care about
| deorbiting it, but the ISS has historic and cultural
| significance. Raise it a bit to a parking orbit, everything
| else can keep track of where it is, and a thousand years
| from space archaeologists can explore it.
|
| Or pack it inside otherwise empty Starships a few segments
| at a time and fly it down intact to put in a museum.
| simonh wrote:
| It would take a massive amount of energy to eject such a huge
| structure from very low orbit out of Earth orbit completely.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Does it have the delta v and structural strength for a
| maneuver like that in its current configuration? I agree it
| would be cool to put it in deep freeze for a few thousand
| years.
| gs17 wrote:
| Structural strength shouldn't be an issue, but it doesn't
| have the delta-v. They would probably need to find a way to
| attach some ion engine tug to it.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Can you imagine, people rebuilding the society after collapse
| and this thing resembling the images in some very old
| artefacts returns from the skies.
| NortySpock wrote:
| > So...with $843M, what could SpaceX come up with? In Gwynne's
| shoes, I'd be looking to develop a vehicle with far wider
| application than a 1-off LEO deorbit burn.
|
| So that would probably point to "Starship, possibly with a lot
| of fuel loaded onboard, docks with ISS, and then feathers its
| maneuvering jets to push the ISS into a guided re-entry into
| the Pacific Ocean."
| skellera wrote:
| Maybe the extra cost is to look into bringing it down without
| destroying it. Would be good to study it for data on long term
| spacecraft.
| java-man wrote:
| This highlights the sorry state of science and space exploration.
| We spent billions building this amazing station, and now we want
| to deorbit it? What a shame.
|
| We spent 6T replacing Taliban with Taliban, we sit and wait while
| russia destroys Ukraine, we could not complete Superconducting
| Super Collider [0], and now this. S.M.R.T!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
| echelon wrote:
| > This highlights the sorry state of science and space
| exploration. We spent billions building this amazing station,
| and now we want to deorbit it? What a shame.
|
| We learned a lot from it, but now it's outdated and crawling
| with difficult to eradicate mold and fungus.
|
| With Starship, we could launch 100 International Space
| Stations.
|
| We'll be fine.
| esafak wrote:
| News to me! https://www.science.org/content/article/space-
| station-mold-s...
| mnau wrote:
| > Space station mold survives 200 times the radiation dose
| that would kill a human
|
| > that the spores could survive radiation doses of 500 to
| 1000 gray (=sieverts),
|
| Humans can survive massive amount if radiation, provided
| it's not all at once (research sample size = 1).
|
| Albert Stevens survived 64 sieverts deliverted over 20
| years (lethal dose 50 % die in 30 days is 4-5 sieverts).
|
| It's almost as if linear-no-threshold model is wrong and we
| do actually have some capability to repair some damage
|
| Edit: just to clarify, survive doesn't mean thrive. Just
| that we might survive in a deadly environment better and
| longer than expected.
| Retric wrote:
| First, acute radiation sickness operates very
| differently. Exposure to 1% of the sunlight required to
| get a sunburn per day doesn't accumulate to a sunburn
| because the tissue isn't damaged at the same time. People
| getting skin cancer from sun exposure are in a very
| different situation.
|
| Linear no threshold is has zero evidence to support it.
| The only reason you hear about it is there is an industry
| who really wishes it were true. Just like people
| suggesting low dose exposure to lead wasn't harmful when
| they want to sell Tetraethyllead in gasoline, monetary
| rewards cloud judgement. Same deal with tanning beds and
| just about any product exposing people to ionizing
| radiation, the risks don't seem bad when there's money to
| be made.
| klyrs wrote:
| > and crawling with difficult to eradicate mold and fungus.
|
| Scifi would like a word...
|
| > We'll be fine.
|
| Oh no
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > crawling with difficult to eradicate mold and fungus
|
| Likely a problem for any future space travel e.g. to Mars?
| Why not use it as a laboratory to figure out how to deal with
| it?
| squigz wrote:
| Because labs don't often have their experiments growing
| uncontrolled everywhere.
| justinclift wrote:
| Well, there was a lab in Wuhan a while back... ;)
| simonh wrote:
| It wasn't designed for that. Presumably habitats intended
| to be long term will be.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > This highlights the sorry state of science and space
| exploration.
|
| No it doesn't. Actually inform yourself. The station is old,
| hard to maintain and out of data.
|
| The money free up from the ISS can then be spent on multiple
| new next generation stations that will be cheaper to operate
| and more modern.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Why not re-orbit? If $2B could be used to keep it going another
| decade, would we do that instead?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Operation costs should increase as more and more parts start
| breaking down. It's an old station by now.
|
| That considered, it feels wrong to not extend its life until it
| actually is cheaper to replace it and, then, do so module by
| module.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| The spacecraft equivalent of refactoring vs rewriting from
| scratch.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I'm wondering how hard it would be to boost it to a long-term
| stable orbit and then empty it of it's atmosphere and just
| preserve it as some kind of a museum piece basically. Of
| course, for the near-to-medium future, such a museum piece is
| completely useless to anyone. But hopefully that won't always
| be the case.
| robocat wrote:
| The hoarding instinct because space is big!
| bdamm wrote:
| Probably because structural materials are reaching their age
| limit, and things like preventing mold are just going to keep
| getting harder and harder. Sure, the station _could_ be re-
| orbited, but maybe it is better to spend that money on
| something new instead of just refurbishing the old station.
| lallysingh wrote:
| https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/dust-on-the-
| inte...
|
| It's also pretty gross up there.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| The thin aluminum pressure compartments are the biggest issue
| I'd imagine; they can only handle so many heat/cool cycles
| orbiting the earth before the material fatigues and fails.
| You'd have to replace them all if you want the station to
| continue, at which point you're essentially building another
| station.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Because another decade would cost another $35B and NASA's got
| other places it wants to spend that money.
| AngryData wrote:
| If we are going to continue to use it at all I think it would
| be better as a platform from which to build a completely new
| space station/platform. From what I understand it is pretty
| fragile at this point and retrofitting it is always going to
| involve compromises and likely cost more in the end.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| It would be an interesting challenge to try to re-orbit and
| recycle it.
|
| I really want to hope some day we get up to space (or moon)
| manufacturing, so we can build amazing things in space. Having
| such a large set of raw materials already in place, to pick
| apart melt down & reuse would be a neat way to jumpstart space
| recycling sustainability.
|
| Ideally we could leave it derelict & decide in 10, 20, 100
| years, hey, yeah there is plenty of raw material here we want
| to go after. Trying to do anything now with it sounds
| expensive, yes. But if we could leave the option open, like a
| landfill we can latter go reprocess if the economics change.
| olliej wrote:
| with or without the Boeing Starliner Max still attached? :D
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I wonder if the truss and other components could be harvested.
| Move to lunar orbit.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Wow didn't expect this to go to SpaceX.
|
| $843 seems like way to much money for this job. Seems like about
| 400 million $ of that would just be mission assurance.
|
| The whole Falcon 9 program didn't even cost 400 million $ to
| develop initially. That includes developing a new engine.
|
| Unless there are some crazy requirements here that I don't see,
| this is a great deal for SpaceX.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| If SpaceX got it for $843m, doesn't that imply it would've cost
| everyone else a lot more?
| jtriangle wrote:
| $843M is the contract cost, basically to just do the R&D. The
| vehicle itself will be sold separately.
| giobox wrote:
| > The whole Falcon 9 program didn't even cost 400 million $ to
| develop initially.
|
| The Falcon 9 first flew in 2010. US govt CPI measure over the
| period 2008 (picking a development start time at random) to
| 2024 is ~45 percent. I've not idea if this explains it all, but
| it certainly explains a chunk of it.
| ikiris wrote:
| Who else is there at the moment? Boeing who people don't even
| trust in atmo, and the russians who we're in a cold war with?
| pmayrgundter wrote:
| Here's hoping launch costs fall quickly and it gets absorbed and
| rebuilt as a much larger station, Ship of Theseus style.
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