NASA Releases Industry Solicitation for ISS Deorbit Vehicle Written 26 September 2023

FlightGlobal reports that on September 20, NASA “released an industry solicitation for a platform the agency is calling the US Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) – which will be used to safely return the aging ISS to Earth.” NASA said that the “primary objective of this contract is to procure a safe, reliable and cost-effective de-orbit vehicle to meet NASA’s ISS end-of-life de-orbit mission requirements.” According to FlightGlobal, the “USDV solicitation gives the US aerospace industry two months to submit proposed designs for such a platform. Prospective contractors will be required to design, develop, manufacture, test, integrate, deliver and sustain the new orbital vehicle.” NASA said, “The USDV is focused on the final de-orbit activity. … It will be a new spacecraft design or modification to an existing spacecraft that must function on its first flight and have sufficient redundancy and anomaly recovery capability to continue the critical de-orbit burn.”
Full Story (FlightGlobal)