NASA awards $415 million for non-public space stations amid ISS changeover issues
NASA just doled out a huge chunk of change for the structure of private space stations,
On Thursday (Dec. 2), the agency declared that it has awarded three funded Space Act Agreements valued at a whole of $415.6 million. The income is break up just about evenly among the three U.S. firms foremost every single job: Blue Origin ($130 million), Nanoracks LLC ($160 million) and Northrop Grumman Devices Corp. ($125.6 million).
All three contracts are part of NASA’s Commercial LEO [low Earth orbit) Development program and were given to companies with many years of experience either with human spacecraft or, in the case of Nanoracks, space experiments.
Related: Building the International Space Station (photos)
The hope is to get at least one of the companies’ concepts in orbit before 2030, which is when the venerable International Space Station (ISS) is expected to shut down, should all of the orbiting lab’s partners agree to extensions. (The ISS is currently approved to operate only through 2024.)
But whether the companies’ projects will be ready in time, and when the ISS program ends, will be open questions as NASA begins to manage the transition.
The first element of the ISS — the Russian Zarya module — flew to space in 1998. Many other elements of the space station are in their second or third decades of operation. While recent battery and solar panel replacements have helped keep the station healthy, the U.S. Congress is among the entities asking how to manage the ISS program and its end smoothly — ideally in a way to minimize any gaps in American-led access to orbit.
NASA’s space shuttle retired in 2011 after 30 years of service, shutring off direct space access for U.S. astronauts for a decade. Although NASA still had a ride to orbit with the long-running Russian Soyuz spacecraft, an American commercial crew replacement was not ready for humans until 2020, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon got up and running. And a looming gap seems possible after the ISS program ends, too.
For the moment, the international partnership has agreed to keep the ISS program running until at least 2024. NASA has long argued that the facility will be safe to occupy until at least 2028, and administrator Bill Nelson has endorsed keeping the station running until 2030. If all goes according to plan, at least one of the newly funded commercial space stations should be operational by the time ISS is deorbited, agency officials said.
“We’re making these awards today to help ensure that there is no gap,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial spaceflight, told reporters in a conference call Thursday.
A recent report by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, however, notes that there might be some headwinds getting the new commercial stations off the ground.
Related: How will the International Space Station die?
The OIG report , which was release Tuesday (Nov. 30), warns that the stakes for timely ISS replacement are high, as any gap could threaten the rapidly growing low Earth economy that NASA is building. Years of commercial research and elements at the ISS will soon include commercial astronauts, starting with an Axiom Space mission scheduled to launch in February 2022.
The OIG report raised concerns about the space station’s advanced age that may make it difficult to maintain, including small leaks (closely monitored and still under investigation) in the Russian Zvezda service module, which has been in orbit since 2000.
The OIG noted that leaks are still occurring despite attempts at repairs. NASA and its partners are investigating multiple possible causes, the OIG report noted; the issue could arise from anything including “fatigue, internal damage, external damage and material defects,” the report stated.
NASA has emphasized, however, that space station crews are under no threat from this maintenance issue. The agency’s response to the report from associate administrator Kathy Lueders added that NASA and Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos, which operates the Russian modules, are still studying the cracks.
“I agreed with all of those challenges,” McAllister added during the Thursday press conference, referring to the OIG report. “[But] I imagine these awards now both handle or noticeably mitigate practically all of the challenges determined in the OIG report.”
As for any extension further than 2024, ISS director Robyn Gatens informed reporters that discussions are ongoing. The current presidential administration and Congress “are supportive,” she stated. You can find no timeline yet on a formal announcement, Gatens added.
State reviews from Russia — just one of the two biggest associates on the ISS, along with the U.S. — propose the nation may well want to generate its very own space station later in the 2020s, both owing to concerns about the aging ISS or to respond to economic sanctions from the United States. Gatens, however, mentioned all room station companions “have indicated their aid, and frankly, they’re type of waiting for the U.S. to go begin” the extension approach.
Gatens famous that how these associates will access the new private area stations is however staying hammered out, but conversations just commenced with the global consortium to evaluate their requires. “It truly is extremely significant to us [NASA] to keep all of our global companions jointly with this, to close this transition from ISS to these house stations. The model — how is it likely to work? — is sort of vast open up.”
NASA predicts upcoming wants for its own professional routines will consist of constant accommodations for at minimum two crew customers, a nationwide orbiting laboratory and at the very least 200 scientific investigations per calendar year in spots these types of as engineering demonstrations, well being research (a vital ingredient in arranging for deep-space missions) and biological and bodily sciences.
The hope is to deliver at minimum a person of these business stations to orbit in the latter 50 percent of the 2020s each just one of the possibilities has the likelihood of expansion, NASA claimed. (The OIG’s report praised NASA’s initiatives in commencing the procurement system, but mentioned “insufficient” funding is one particular of the troubles the company faces in maturing the marketplace.)
Orbital Reef, a Blue Origin- and Sierra Room-led initiative, options a form of “blended-use area business enterprise park” (in NASA’s text) catering to end users close to the entire world in the latter fifty percent of the 2020s. Consumers will include authorities, industrial and marketplace clients. Prepared features contain reusable place transportation and highly developed automation, the latter of which was not greatly accessible when the ISS was currently being developed.
The Nanoracks-led station is Starlab, set to launch in 2027. This station would host 4 crew associates, double NASA’s prerequisite, and have a George Washington Carver Science Park with departments in biology, plant habitation, bodily science and resources investigation.
Northrop Grumman’s style (NASA did not disclose a title for the technique in the agency’s press launch) will consist of a foundation module and capabilities in sectors such as place tourism, industrial experiments and science. It will have various docking ports for enlargement choices in spots ranging from synthetic gravity amenities to laboratories to crew habitats.
The providers will have right until 2025 to formulate and structure their “places,” as NASA phrases the new industrial place stations. Then will occur a next period which include certification for crew member use, which will lead to invest in services agreements, NASA mentioned a press release about the contracts.
The newly awarded contracts are independent from a contact for proposals that NASA issued in 2019 to add professional modules to the ISS or build individual professional stations, called “cost-free flyers.” NASA chosen Axiom Room for a docking port ingredient in January 2020, but by that August halted the solicitation method without featuring more specifics, according to Space News.
Axiom plans to start its initially module to the ISS in September 2024, then loft a few additional more than the future 3 many years. The company’s 4 modules could then detach from the ISS and grow to be a totally free-flying station.
Observe Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Fb.
NASA just doled out a huge chunk of change for the structure of private space stations,
On Thursday (Dec. 2), the agency declared that it has awarded three funded Space Act Agreements valued at a whole of $415.6 million. The income is break up just about evenly among the three U.S. firms foremost every single job: Blue Origin ($130 million), Nanoracks LLC ($160 million) and Northrop Grumman Devices Corp. ($125.6 million).
All three contracts are part of NASA’s Commercial LEO [low Earth orbit) Development program and were given to companies with many years of experience either with human spacecraft or, in the case of Nanoracks, space experiments.
Related: Building the International Space Station (photos)
The hope is to get at least one of the companies’ concepts in orbit before 2030, which is when the venerable International Space Station (ISS) is expected to shut down, should all of the orbiting lab’s partners agree to extensions. (The ISS is currently approved to operate only through 2024.)
But whether the companies’ projects will be ready in time, and when the ISS program ends, will be open questions as NASA begins to manage the transition.
The first element of the ISS — the Russian Zarya module — flew to space in 1998. Many other elements of the space station are in their second or third decades of operation. While recent battery and solar panel replacements have helped keep the station healthy, the U.S. Congress is among the entities asking how to manage the ISS program and its end smoothly — ideally in a way to minimize any gaps in American-led access to orbit.
NASA’s space shuttle retired in 2011 after 30 years of service, shutring off direct space access for U.S. astronauts for a decade. Although NASA still had a ride to orbit with the long-running Russian Soyuz spacecraft, an American commercial crew replacement was not ready for humans until 2020, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon got up and running. And a looming gap seems possible after the ISS program ends, too.
For the moment, the international partnership has agreed to keep the ISS program running until at least 2024. NASA has long argued that the facility will be safe to occupy until at least 2028, and administrator Bill Nelson has endorsed keeping the station running until 2030. If all goes according to plan, at least one of the newly funded commercial space stations should be operational by the time ISS is deorbited, agency officials said.
“We’re making these awards today to help ensure that there is no gap,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial spaceflight, told reporters in a conference call Thursday.
A recent report by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, however, notes that there might be some headwinds getting the new commercial stations off the ground.
Related: How will the International Space Station die?
The OIG report , which was release Tuesday (Nov. 30), warns that the stakes for timely ISS replacement are high, as any gap could threaten the rapidly growing low Earth economy that NASA is building. Years of commercial research and elements at the ISS will soon include commercial astronauts, starting with an Axiom Space mission scheduled to launch in February 2022.
The OIG report raised concerns about the space station’s advanced age that may make it difficult to maintain, including small leaks (closely monitored and still under investigation) in the Russian Zvezda service module, which has been in orbit since 2000.
The OIG noted that leaks are still occurring despite attempts at repairs. NASA and its partners are investigating multiple possible causes, the OIG report noted; the issue could arise from anything including “fatigue, internal damage, external damage and material defects,” the report stated.
NASA has emphasized, however, that space station crews are under no threat from this maintenance issue. The agency’s response to the report from associate administrator Kathy Lueders added that NASA and Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos, which operates the Russian modules, are still studying the cracks.
“I agreed with all of those challenges,” McAllister added during the Thursday press conference, referring to the OIG report. “[But] I imagine these awards now both handle or noticeably mitigate practically all of the challenges determined in the OIG report.”
As for any extension further than 2024, ISS director Robyn Gatens informed reporters that discussions are ongoing. The current presidential administration and Congress “are supportive,” she stated. You can find no timeline yet on a formal announcement, Gatens added.
State reviews from Russia — just one of the two biggest associates on the ISS, along with the U.S. — propose the nation may well want to generate its very own space station later in the 2020s, both owing to concerns about the aging ISS or to respond to economic sanctions from the United States. Gatens, however, mentioned all room station companions “have indicated their aid, and frankly, they’re type of waiting for the U.S. to go begin” the extension approach.
Gatens famous that how these associates will access the new private area stations is however staying hammered out, but conversations just commenced with the global consortium to evaluate their requires. “It truly is extremely significant to us [NASA] to keep all of our global companions jointly with this, to close this transition from ISS to these house stations. The model — how is it likely to work? — is sort of vast open up.”
NASA predicts upcoming wants for its own professional routines will consist of constant accommodations for at minimum two crew customers, a nationwide orbiting laboratory and at the very least 200 scientific investigations per calendar year in spots these types of as engineering demonstrations, well being research (a vital ingredient in arranging for deep-space missions) and biological and bodily sciences.
The hope is to deliver at minimum a person of these business stations to orbit in the latter 50 percent of the 2020s each just one of the possibilities has the likelihood of expansion, NASA claimed. (The OIG’s report praised NASA’s initiatives in commencing the procurement system, but mentioned “insufficient” funding is one particular of the troubles the company faces in maturing the marketplace.)
Orbital Reef, a Blue Origin- and Sierra Room-led initiative, options a form of “blended-use area business enterprise park” (in NASA’s text) catering to end users close to the entire world in the latter fifty percent of the 2020s. Consumers will include authorities, industrial and marketplace clients. Prepared features contain reusable place transportation and highly developed automation, the latter of which was not greatly accessible when the ISS was currently being developed.
The Nanoracks-led station is Starlab, set to launch in 2027. This station would host 4 crew associates, double NASA’s prerequisite, and have a George Washington Carver Science Park with departments in biology, plant habitation, bodily science and resources investigation.
Northrop Grumman’s style (NASA did not disclose a title for the technique in the agency’s press launch) will consist of a foundation module and capabilities in sectors such as place tourism, industrial experiments and science. It will have various docking ports for enlargement choices in spots ranging from synthetic gravity amenities to laboratories to crew habitats.
The providers will have right until 2025 to formulate and structure their “places,” as NASA phrases the new industrial place stations. Then will occur a next period which include certification for crew member use, which will lead to invest in services agreements, NASA mentioned a press release about the contracts.
The newly awarded contracts are independent from a contact for proposals that NASA issued in 2019 to add professional modules to the ISS or build individual professional stations, called “cost-free flyers.” NASA chosen Axiom Room for a docking port ingredient in January 2020, but by that August halted the solicitation method without featuring more specifics, according to Space News.
Axiom plans to start its initially module to the ISS in September 2024, then loft a few additional more than the future 3 many years. The company’s 4 modules could then detach from the ISS and grow to be a totally free-flying station.
Observe Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Fb.