In a bid to retire the aging International Space Station (ISS) by 2030, NASA has selected SpaceX to develop and deliver the "U.S. Deorbit Vehicle." The chosen company will be responsible for safely bringing down the largest single structure in space ever built, avoiding populated regions and minimizing the distribution of debris.

The ISS, weighing nearly 1 million pounds, will meet its dramatic end by breaking apart and largely vaporizing while falling through Earth's atmosphere. The remaining charred chunks will then plunge into a remote ocean and sink to the seafloor.

Bringing down the entire space station as a whole is essential, as dismantling it piece by piece would prove highly complex, dangerous for the crew, and present numerous engineering challenges. "The station wasn't designed to be taken apart," said Ken Bowersox, the associate administrator of NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate.

To accomplish this critical task, SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, will develop a modified version of its Dragon cargo spacecraft. This new spacecraft will need to carry approximately 16,000 kilograms (35,000 pounds) of propellant to move the massive space station.

The process of retiring the ISS involves several stages. NASA will launch a rocket capable of lifting the heavy, propellant-packed U.S. Deorbit Vehicle to the space station, weighing around 30,000 kilograms (66,000 pounds). Approximately 1 to 1.5 years before the end of 2030, NASA will allow the ISS to gradually lose altitude. Once it reaches an altitude of 220 kilometers (137 miles), the SpaceX craft will begin thrusting to initiate the controlled descent.

The primary goal is to ensure that the falling pieces of the space station are confined to a tight and small footprint, minimizing the risk of unexpected distribution over wide areas. "You minimize how far the parts can be distributed," explained Dana Weigel, the manager of NASA's International Space Station Program.

By retiring the ISS, NASA is looking ahead to future human missions to the moon and Mars. The agency aims to return astronauts to the moon by late 2026. Instead of relying on the 24/7 responsibility of operating a space station with international partners, NASA plans to utilize commercially owned and operated Earth-orbiting modules for ongoing research endeavors.

The SpaceX collaboration for the safe deorbit of the ISS marks another milestone in the space agency's push towards future exploration missions.