Elon Musk's SpaceX wins the $843 million contract to destroy the International Space Station

SpaceX has won the contract to help tear down NASA's International Space Station, and it's expected to happen sooner than previously thought.

Built in 1998, the ISS was created in collaboration with NASA, Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan) and CSA (Canada), Telegraph reports.

Since then it has enabled scientists to conduct experiments that could not have been carried out from anywhere else - standing some 300 kilometers above Earth.

The US space agency described the ISS as a major achievement that helped them conduct research in space.

But this station was not built to last forever, with its "lifespan" expected to expire in 2030. NASA will let the ISS slowly approach Earth 18 months after operations on it end.

A spacecraft will then dock with the ISS and use its thrusters to propel the space station toward Earth. And it's Elon Musk's SpaceX that secured the $843,000,000 contract to do the work.

A modified version of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which has four times the power of the regular Dragon spacecraft, will complete the contracted work.

A Falcon Heavy rocket is expected to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 25, 2028. /Telegrafi/