I’D MISSED THIS STORY LAST WEEK AMIDST ALL THE OTHER EXCITEMENT: Enhanced Dragon spacecraft to deorbit the ISS at the end of its life.

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 of its life, said Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX.

The “enhanced” trunk section, she said, is twice as long as the regular one and will include engines, propellant tanks, power generation and other systems. It will store six times the propellant as the current Dragon spacecraft, while generating and storing three to four times the power. “It’s almost a spacecraft in and of itself,” she said.

NASA, which will own and operate the USDV after SpaceX builds it, will launch the vehicle to the ISS shortly after the arrival of the station’s final crew. Once the USDV arrives and is checked out, ISS controllers will allow the station’s orbit to naturally decay, with the final crew leaving once the station’s altitude, currently about 400 kilometers, reaches 330 kilometers.

The station’s orbit will decay further for about six months before NASA used the USDV for a final controlled deorbit of the station, targeting an open area of ocean in a narrow corridor about 2,000 kilometers long.

I just hope SpaceX loads it up with cameras like they do for Falcon and Starship launches.