Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: NASA

NASA has issued a Final Request for Proposal (RFP) for the United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) – a craft to dump the International Space Station in a controlled manner at the outpost’s end-of-life to avoid populated areas.

Proposals are due no later than November 17 to design, develop, manufacture, test, integrate, deliver to NASA, and sustain the USDV, such that the USDV can perform the final deorbit of the space station.

The USDV shall rendezvous and dock with the ISS as well as perform ISS attitude control, ISS translational maneuvers, and the final ISS orbit shaping and reentry burns.

Shared responsibility

The safe deorbit of the International Space Station is a “shared responsibility” of all five cooperating space agencies — NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the State Space Corporation Roscosmos — that have operated the station since 1998.

“In the future, the United States plans to transition its operations in low Earth orbit to commercially-owned and -operated platforms to ensure continued access and presence in space for research, technology development, and international collaboration,” NASA states.

Proceeding with plans

Over the years, a number of options to safely deorbit the space station, including the option of using up to three Russian-provided Progress spacecraft at the end of station operations.

“These efforts indicated that a new or modified spacecraft is needed to provide more robust capabilities for deorbit,” NASA adds.

Now NASA is engaging with U.S. industry and is proceeding with plans to procure a USDV that will perform the final, safe, deorbit maneuver of the space station.