Companies are rapidly designing private space stations that could one day dominate operations in orbit around the Earth.
Why it’s important: NASA expects private industry to begin taking over low-Earth orbit operations once the International Space Station is completed, creating a robust commercial market in this part of space.
- Commercially operated private space stations are an important part of NASA’s vision to buy services from orbiting companies and then focus on more remote goals like reaching the Moon and Mars.
Leading the news: NASA detailed an initiative in late March in which companies were asked to partner with them in the development of private space stations that could act as a destination for NASA research and astronauts in the future.
- Under these agreements, NASA would help support companies as they develop space stations and conduct preliminary design reviews (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 its plans to build a private space station.
- Another company, Axiom Space, already has plans underway to build its own commercial space station after first joining a module on the International Space Station sometime in the next few years.
Between lines: NASA wants to avoid having a gap in regular access to the agency’s orbit when the ISS is removed before the end of the decade.
- The space agency was forced to rely on Russia to enter orbit when the space shuttle program ended before commercial flyers like SpaceX were up and running.
- By partnering with private companies now, the agency indicates that it wants to move smoothly to private stations instead of a hard stop when the ISS ends.
- “We’re not going to turn off the lights one day,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial space flight development, said during an event. “We will have an overlap period in which, over a period of time, we will take out ISS operations as we increase LEO operations [low-Earth orbit] destinations. So that gives us some time. “
NASA has already demonstrated this effectively this kind of public / private collaboration model with SpaceX flying astronauts in orbit.
But, but, but: Operating a private space station is a much bigger task than simply launching people into space, and some industry experts say there is not enough time for private companies to run their space stations before the ISS ends. .
- Funding for NASA’s new program may not be enough to get these stations up and running in time.
- “I do not see how they will achieve it by 2024 [or] 2028, “he told Axios Victoria Samson 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. ”