Companies are rapidly designing private space stations that could one day dominate operations in orbit around the Earth.
Why does it matter: NASA hopes that private industry will begin operations in low-Earth orbit once the International Space Station ends, creating a robust commercial market in that part of space.
- Commercially operated private space stations are a big part of NASA’s vision to buy services from companies in orbit and then focus on more distant goals, such as reaching the moon and Mars.
News management: NASA detailed an initiative in late March, urging companies to partner with them in developing private space stations that could act as a destination for NASA astronauts and research in the future.
- Under these agreements, NASA would help support companies as they develop space stations and conduct preliminary design analyzes – an important technical assessment of what it will take for a station to fly – by the end of fiscal year 2025.
- Following this announcement, Sierra Nevada Corporation announced plans to build a private space station.
- Another company, Axiom Space, already has plans in place to build its own commercial space station after first attaching a module to the International Space Station at some point in the next few years.
Between the lines: NASA wants to avoid a gap in the agency’s regular access to orbit when the ISS is withdrawn before the end of the decade.
- The space agency had to rely on Russia for orbit access when the space shuttle program ended before commercial leaflets such as SpaceX were launched.
- By partnering with private companies now, the agency says it wants to be able to move smoothly to private stations instead of a difficult stop when the ISS ends.
- “We’re not going to turn off the light one day,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial space flight development, said during an event. “We will have an overlapping period in which we, over a period of time, pull ISS operations as we increase operations for LEO [low-Earth orbit] destinations. So that gives us some time. “
NASA has already proven effective to launch this type of public / private partnership model with SpaceX flying astronauts in orbit.
But, but, but: Operating a private space station is a much larger task than simply launching people into space, and some industry experts say there is not enough time for private companies to operate their space stations before the ISS ends.
- Funding attached to NASA’s new program may also not be enough to get these stations off the ground in time.
- “I do not see how they will reunite until 2024 [or] 2028, “said for Samios Victoria Axson of the Secure World Foundation.” I think we are much more likely to see the Chinese space station long before the commercial space station or a private sector space station. ”