NASA recently issued a call to companies in the space industry to create a "tug" capable of pulling objects out of space and crashing them on Earth. Who got stuck in the Galactic Castel and led the agency to this strange step? We used ChatGPT to explain.
NASA is asking for proposals to develop a "space drag," officially known as USDV (United States Deorbit Vehicle), where "space" is our invention for "paving" bodies in space, and "non-space" is the removal of a body in Earth orbit from that orbit). The reason: It is trying to prepare in advance for the retirement of the International Space Station early in the next decade.
The mission of Space Drag will be to safely steer the American part of the space station into Earth's atmosphere and crash it safely into the ocean. The move signals a commitment by NASA to dispose of parts of the space station responsibly after its mission ends, rather than leaving it as a giant piece of garbage in space. It should be noted that this cargo exceeds all accounts: it is 109 meters long and weighs about 420 tons.
Proposals for implementing the idea can be submitted until November 17, and NASA is open, and even encouraged, collaborations between various parties to plan the vehicle and how to pay for the mission, with two possible models currently available: a fixed price, or a cost price plus incentives for fulfilling various stages of the creation process, including design, development, testing and evaluation.
In its announcement, the agency emphasized the importance of ensuring a controlled orbit to crash the American part of the space station to avoid any populated area — unlike the two early space stations of the Americans and Russians, which dispersed in their crash into populated areas. The agency noted that the person responsible for determining the orbit of the space station in recent years, the Russian cargo vehicle Progress, is unable to tow it beyond small movements one way or another.
Interestingly, NASA emphasized that its project was intended to handle the American part of the station — but did not give details about parts of the other partners, including the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. However, it is important to emphasize that despite the political tensions between the West and Russia on Earth due to the war in Ukraine, when it comes to the space station, cooperation continues as usual, with astronauts from all partner countries being launched and returned to the surface together.
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