NASA Commercial LEO Destinations project for private space stations

Last year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration marked two decades of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. But as the floating research lab ages, the space agency is turning to private companies to build and deploy new free-flying habitats in low Earth orbit.

NASA unveiled the LEO Commercial Destinations (CLD) project last week, with plans to provide up to $ 400 million in total to four companies in the fourth quarter of 2021 to begin development of private space stations.

The Agency shall endeavor to replicate the success of its commercial cargo and commercial crew programs. These programs have seen three companies take over for NASA as a means of sending cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

NASA’s LEO Commercial Director, Phil McAlister, said he believes the low-Earth orbit field has three main activities: “Freight, Crew, and Destinations.” NASA transferred responsibility for the first two activities to private companies, with the agency paying SpaceX and Northrop Grumman to send spacecraft to the ISS, as well as SpaceX and Boeing to launch astronauts. McAlister pointed out that previously, NASA had full ownership of all three activities.

“If it always remained that way, our aspirations in low Earth orbit would always be limited by the size of NASA’s budget,” McAlister said in a briefing Tuesday. “By bringing the private sector into these sections and these areas, as suppliers and users, you are expanding the pot and having more people in low Earth orbit.”

The potential cost savings of NASA being a space station user, rather than an owner and operator, is a major reason for the CLD program. The International Space Station costs NASA about $ 4 billion a year to operate. Moreover, the ISS cost a total of $ 150 billion to develop and build, with NASA raising most of that bill, while Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada each contributed.

NASA estimated last year that the Commercial Crew alone would have saved the agency between $ 20 billion and $ 30 billion, while financing the development of two spacecraft rather than one. While Boeing has not yet completed development tests, undergoing extensive effort after the first launch of the unmanned Starliner capsule in December 2019, failed due to several anomalies, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is now flying operational NASA astronauts.

Another motivator for the start of the CLD program is the aging of the ISS hardware, as much of the space station’s core structures were manufactured in the 1990s, and the final pressurized structure was added in 2011. Last year, Russian cosmonauts worked to fix a small air leak in a station module space.

“The ISS is an amazing system, but unfortunately it won’t last forever,” McAlister said. “He could experience an unrecoverable anomaly at any time.”

NASA sees the CLD program as a way to get more companies to develop and build new habitats over the next few years, so that the agency has an overlap period before the ISS withdraws. McAlister mentioned that, apart from the CLD program, NASA awarded the space flight specialist Axiom Space with a contract of 140 million dollars to build modules to be added to the ISS. When the ISS withdraws, Axiom intends to detach its modules and turn it into a free-flying space station.

“We’re making progress there and we’re very pleased with that,” McAlister said. “We would like to have competition in the supply area, which is why we do it [CLD]. It has always been part of our plan both to attach modules and to have free flyers. “

A spokesman for the Axiom, in a statement to CNBC, said the company “generally supports NASA’s vision of a multi-faceted economy in LEO.”

“We are raising private funds to design and develop our first commercial destination in the world to demonstrate that truly commercial leadership can advance the LEO economy. The construction of the original Axiom Station as an extension of the International Space Station will expand the work that can be done on the station in the short term and best allow a timely and smooth transition when the ISS reaches the end of its life, “he said. Axiom.

A NASA list of registered organizations for the briefing revealed a wide variety of aerospace and space companies, including: Airbus USA, Blue Origin, Boeing, Collins Aerospace, Firefly Aerospace, General Dynamics, ispace, Lockheed Martin, Moog, Nanoracks, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Redwire Space, RUAG Space, Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, Voyager Space Holdings and York Space Systems.

Already, one of those companies has announced that it will soon reveal its plan for a free-flying space station. Sierra Nevada Corporation, or SNC, said it would host a virtual press conference on March 31 to unveil the design of the SNC Space Station.

NASA will launch a final announcement for CLD proposals in May, with the first phase of funding awards expected between October and December. NASA’s Johnson Space Center will manage the CLD program through its commercial development office LEO.