SpaceX, owned by Musk, contracted to demolish the ISS space station

Elon Musk's SpaceX secures a USD 843 million NASA agreement to create a US Deorbit Vehicle for safely bringing down the International Space Station (ISS) in 2030, once its operational lifespan concludes. This vehicle will safely bring down the space station, preventing any danger to inhabited regions.

SpaceX will produce the spacecraft for deorbiting, while NASA will supervise the entire mission. The spacecraft is anticipated to break apart upon re-entry, as well as make a stop at the space station.

Since 1998, astronauts from CSA, ESA, JAXA, NASA, and Roscosmos have been aboard the ISS. Every department had the duty of overseeing and regulating the equipment it supplied.

Currently, the ISS has been hosting crewed operations for 24 years, during which over 3,300 experiments have been carried out in microgravity.

At the moment, NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are stuck on the International Space Station as engineers try to repair the Boeing Starliner spaceship, which is meant to transport them back to Earth. Originally intending to stay for eight days on the ISS, the astronauts reached their destination on June 6, however, they had to extend their visit because of technical problems.

Twenty days later, NASA and Boeing are continuing to work on bringing back the Starliner Crew Flight Test spacecraft, which encountered a minor helium system leak while traveling.