Tag Archives: Enhanced

NASA Space Technology BUSAN, South Korea — SpaceX will develop a souped-up version of its Dragon spacecraft for NASA to handle the deorbiting of the International Space Station around the end of the decade.At a July 17 briefing, NASA and SpaceX officials provided new details about the United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) spacecraft NASA selected SpaceX to build June 26 under a contract worth up to $843 million. At the time of the announcement, neither the agency nor the company described the design of the spacecraft or its specific capabilities.The USDV will be based on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft but with a redesigned, larger trunk section with more Draco thrusters. The spacecraft will have 46 Draco thrusters, 16 for attitude control and 30 to perform the maneuvers needed to lower the station’s orbit at the end...