spacetoday.net: NASA proposing to spend up to $1 billion on ISS deorbit tug

Posted: Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 10:37 AM ET (1437 GMT)
NASA

NASA projects spending up to $1 billion on a tug to deorbit the International Space Station at the end of its life. The agency also released its full budget Monday, requesting $27.2 billion in 2024. That budget includes $180 million to start work on the deorbit tug, which the agency current expects to cost "a little bit short" of $1 billion, although agency officials hope companies will find ways to reduce the costs. The tug is intended to provide redundancy to plans to use cargo spacecraft to deorbit the station in 2030. The tug is the biggest new program in the budget that largely continues existing ones, such as elements of Artemis. The budget, though, revealed that NASA has delayed the Artemis 4 mission from 2027 to 2028, while keeping Artemis 3 in late 2025.