NASA Eyes Billion-Dollar Space Vehicle to Avert International Space Station's Uncontrolled Reentry

An approaching federal contract deadline may reveal the solution to an urgent problem facing the U.S. space program: how to safely deorbit the International Space Station in the event of an emergency or when its mission wraps up. Companies have until March 4 to turn in their proposals to "design, develop, manufacture, test, integrate, achieve NASA acceptance, deliver, and sustain" what the space agency is calling the United States Deorbit Vehicle, envisioned as "a new or modified spacecraft using a large amount of propellant." More

(Source: Military.com - Jan 12)