If you’ve ever heard someone refer to the idea of ”working in space”, they would have forgiven you for thinking they were describing a science fiction plot. But the number of people actively working beyond the Earth’s atmosphere – and living significant parts of their lives there – is about to start growing at a potentially exponential rate. Given how small this population is now, growth may seem slow at first – but it’s happening soon and there are plans to help it start climbing fast.
The main company leading these short-term plans is Axiom Space, a private space station service provider and possibly operator. Axiom is founded and run by people with experience and expertise in the International Space Station, and the company already operates research and development missions on behalf of private clients on the ISS with the help of NASA astronauts. It plans to start transporting entire private astronauts to the station starting in 2021 and is also building a new commercial space station that will eventually replace the ISS in orbit once it is decommissioned.
Amir Blachman, head of Axiom Space’s business office, joined TC Sessions: Space last week on a panel that included NASA’s head of mission exploration and planning. Nujoud Merancy, Senior vice president of the former Sierra Nevada Corporation and former astronaut Janet Kavandi, as well as co-founder Melodie Yashar, co-founder of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch +). The panel focused on how public and private entities are preparing for a (relatively near) future in which people spend more time off Earth – and beyond.
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“It’s been a few years now,” Blachman said in response to a question about how far beyond NASA astronauts live in space. “Axiom, send crews to the International Space Station today on our own missions, as we build the new commercial space station that will succeed the ISS when it is decommissioned. Our first mission with a crew of four astronauts is launched 12 months ago and the four crew members have already gone through medical services, made their costumes, we have already integrated our medical operations and training team with our launch provider.We will launch that crew in 2021, another crew in 2022, two crews and 2023 , four in 2024 – and grow from there. “
Both Blachman and Merancy spoke about the importance of automation and robotic systems on both the future Axiom commercial space stations and NASA’s future habitats on the lunar surface, as well as the lunar gateway that will remain in orbit around the moon. will act as a field of monthly missions.
“The ISS was meant to be taken care of all the time,” Merancy said. “It’s not meant to be an unmanned station. And while ground controllers do a lot of the actual operation, it’s meant to have people there performing maintenance. We don’t have that luxury when you start talking in As for the monthly architecture, the Gateway will only be taken care of when the crew arrives, and things on the surface will only be taken care of for, you know, at first a week and then more in time. all things to be able to do useful science or useful exploration even without a crew, so the ability to do tele-robotics, to maintain things by ground command and such, so that when the crew arrives, they can throw the hatch open and get to work would be the ideal condition. “
“We have worked on the assumption that these habitats and critical infrastructure on Mars and, more recently, on the moon should be built and should be considered built as autonomously as possible,” Yashar added. “So we usually design precursor missions, which would happen just before a crew arrives, hoping that almost all systems through construction, materials, excavations, material handling and all the other systems we’ve analyzed would be more or more or less happens as autonomously as possible. “
Kavandi also echoed the feelings of others about the extent to which modern human space systems will incorporate automation. I asked if this would introduce complexity, but she said she should rather do the opposite. Somewhat ironically, the way forward for human activity in space actually involves much less human activity – at least when it comes to the operation and maintenance of space infrastructure.
“Things with advanced technology can sometimes add simplicity,” Kavandi said. “As we have expanded our capabilities over the years, for example, computers have become easier to use, not harder to use. The goal is to try to minimize crew time and crew maintenance so that you can focus your time, your time on research, or anything else you should do up there, whatever your mission. So the more we can simplify the interfaces, the more we can have automation, where the crew only has to intervene when something goes wrong, but in general, things go smoothly and they don’t have to do anything, this is an ideal situation. . you’re up there for “.