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Artykuły o American space stations after the ISS
« dnia: Maj 21, 2018, 08:07 »
NASA wrestles with what to do with International Space Station after 2024
May 20, 2018 Stephen Clark [SN]


Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s human exploration and operations directorate (left), and Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general (right), testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness on May 16. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Lawmakers last week questioned the Trump administration’s proposal to end direct U.S. government support of the International Space Station in 2025, citing concerns about the economic viability of commercial outposts in low Earth orbit.

In a pair of hearings before Senate and House panels, NASA’s manager in charge of human spaceflight activities, the agency’s inspector general, and independent experts testified on the future of the International Space Station, and the White House’s plans to discontinue government funding of the orbiting research laboratory.

It has been NASA’s goal since the Obama administration to eventually turn over human spaceflight operations in low Earth orbit, a region a few hundred miles in altitude, to commercial companies, freeing up federal funding to pay for expeditions deeper into space.

The Trump administration in February proposed ending direct U.S. government support of the space station in 2025, prompting debate and discussion over whether commercial industry can make a business of building and operating orbiting research facilities staffed by astronauts.

There are numerous unanswered questions facing lawmakers, NASA officials and entrepreneurs studying the issue.

What is the commercial demand for an orbiting laboratory? Can a commercial operator maintain a space station in low Earth orbit without substantial financial support from the government?

What are NASA’s needs for research in low Earth orbit, as the space agency turns its sights toward the moon and Mars? Will China’s planned space station eat into the market for a commercial research complex in orbit? What do the International Space Station’s other partners think about the plan to privatize human space operations in low Earth orbit?

And there are other questions under consideration, such as how much it will cost to transport humans and cargo between Earth and an orbiting space station in the late 2020s.

Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general, told the Senate’s Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness on Wednesday that it is unlikely a commercial operator could wholly take over the space station’s annual budget by 2025.

“Based on our work, we question whether a sufficient business case exists under which private companies can create a self-sustaining and profit-making business using the ISS, independent of significant government funding, Martin said. “From our perspective, it is unlikely that a private entity or entities would assume the station’s annual operating costs, currently projected at $1.2 billion in 2024.

“Such a business case requires robust demand for commercial market activities,” Martin added. “Candidly, the scant commercial interest shown in the station over its nearly 20 years of operation give us pause about the agency’s current plans.”


Expedition 55 flight engineer Ricky Arnold works with an experiment on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Two senators expressed their opposition to the station’s privatization during Wednesday’s hearing.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the Trump administration’s proposal to end federal funding for the space station in 2025 “deeply troubling.”

“Nowhere in federal statute is there a request from Congress seeking a hard deadline to end federal support for ISS, to cross our fingers and hope for the best,” said Cruz, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees NASA. “We’ve seen that act play out too many times in our national space program, and it’s time we learn the lessons of history. Prematurely canceling a program for political reasons costs jobs and wastes billions of dollars.”

The subcommittee’s ranking member, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, agreed with Cruz.

“Abandoning this incredible orbiting laboratory where they are doing research, when we are on the cusp of a new era of space exploration, would be irresponsible at best, and probably disastrous,” Nelson said.

Nelson said the White House’s proposal to end federal funding of the space station in 2025 was a “random date.”

“So it was a political decision, and as far as this committee is concerned — and I can tell you as far as this senator is concerned — that proposal is dead on arrival,” Nelson said.

“It’s not fair to NASA or to industry to force a transition based on an arbitrary date,” Nelson said. “That decision should be based on factors like NASA’s research requirements and the readiness of industry to take the lead. We need to listen to our scientists and the experts at NASA.”

“We didn’t see the necessity of picking a specific date within the agency, but as part of the administration, we came to the conclusion that picking a date would prompt a serious discussion,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Cruz and Nelson said they agreed on the importance of maintaining support for the space station.

“As long as I am chairman of this subcommittee, the ISS will continue to have strong support — strong bipartisan support — in the United States Congress,” Cruz said.

NASA and its partners have spent more than $100 billion designing, building and operating the space station over three decades. The research facility costs between $3 billion and $4 billion per year to operate, a budget that includes costs for cargo and crew transportation.

Following the privatization model used in cargo and crew transportation after the space shuttle’s retirement, NASA wants to commercialize human spaceflight operations in low Earth orbit in hopes of easing costs and freeing up government funding for deep space missions.


Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing technology for a commercial space station, has proposed installing a large commercial expandable habitat on the International Space Station as a follow-up to ongoing experiments with a smaller module. Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

NASA plans to construct a mini-space station in orbit around the moon in the 2020s for use as a research platform to gain experience with long-duration crew stays farther away from Earth. The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway could also be a staging point for landers carrying experiments and astronauts to and from the moon’s surface.

Gerstenmaier said NASA does not intend to give up on human spaceflight in low Earth orbit, but that the agency aims to be one of multiple customers for a potential commercial space station — either a privatized ISS or a new privately-developed platform.

He identified the development of new pharmaceutical drugs and in-space manufacturing as two potential commercial applications for an orbiting space station.

“To be clear, NASA is not abandoning low Earth orbit,” Gerstenmaier said. “We must ensure the right pieces are in place to maintain an operational human preseence in low Earth orbit, whether through a modified ISS program, commercial platforms, or some combination of both.”

A recent audit concluded that NASA will not be able to complete research aboard the International Space Station into the human health risks of long-duration spaceflight, or finish developing new technologies to enable lengthy crewed missions to the moon and Mars, by the end of 2024, according to Martin, the agency’s inspector general.

NASA released a solicitation Thursday asking U.S. companies and research institutions for studies examining the market for a commercial space station in low Earth orbit, detailed business plans, and concepts for orbiting human research outposts. Organizations selected by NASA later this summer will receive up to $1 million each for their studies.

NASA is also asking companies for concepts that may include the attachment of commercial habitats or labs to the forward end of the International Space Station’s Harmony module.

But Martin said the agency must find a way to reduce its expenditures on low Earth orbit human spaceflight programs if it hopes to pay for crewed missions to the moon’s vicinity, and eventually the lunar surface.

“Any assumption that ending direct federal funding (of the International Space Station) frees up $3 to $4 billion beginning in 2025 to use on other NASA exploration initiatives is wishful thinking,” Martin said. “That said, unless the agency receives a substantial increase in funding or can dramatically reduce costs, it will be hard-pressed to continue supporting ISS operations under its current model while attempting to fund other initiatives such as the lunar gateway … a moon landing, and a crewed Mars mission.”

Gerstenmaier said he believes a relatively flat budget, adjusted for inflation and economic growth, could simultaneously support a somewhat reduced low Earth orbit human spaceflight program and NASA’s deep space exploration initiatives.

He said the International Space Station, which has modules originally designed for a 15-year lifetime, could be operated safely through at least 2028, the 30-year anniversary of the launch of the facility’s first elements.

“I think we have a good operational life at least through 2028, and possibly a little bit further beyond that,” Gerstenmaier said. “We just need to continue to watch station, continue to maintain it.

“What we don’t want to have happen is where we’re spending more time doing maintenance than we are doing research,” he said. “At that point, then the utility of station starts to diminish. We have not seen that. Station is very viable at least through 2028.”

In a separate hearing Thursday before the House Science Committee, lawmakers heard testimony from Bhavya Lal, who helped lead a study investigating the viability of a commercially-operated space station at the Institute for Defense Analyses’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.

“This transition (to a commercial space station) can occur in two primary ways,” she said. “The ISS could be privatized, as in all or parts of it could be taken over by a private entity and operated on behalf of the government, much like most DOE (Department of Energy) labs are today. Alternatively, a private sector entity could build, launch and operate a commercial low Earth Orbit based platform for profit.”


Bhavya Lal, a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, testifies during a House Science Committee hearing on May 17. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Lal’s team looked at two different space station configurations, and they assumed that launch prices in 2025 would be reduced by 50 to 75 percent from today’s prices, a prospective price cut she described as an “aggressive assumption.”

“In three of the four scenarios we postulated, revenues did not cover costs,” she said. “Venture capitalists we spoke to indicated that projected revneue streams are too far in the future and too uncertain to warrant making significant investments today. Overall, our analysis showed that it is unlikely the a commercial space station would be economically viable by 2025.”

Lal agreed with Gerstenmaier and Martin that an extension of the space station’s lifetime through 2028 — with operating costs similar to today’s — would take money away from deep space exploration and delay the return of astronauts to the moon.

“It may also take away opportunities from a rapidly burgeoning private sector that feels ready to lead acitvities in LEO,” Lal said.

“The ISS or modules within it could be privatized with a private sector entity operating the station, but paid for largely by the government,” she said. “Depending on how the deal is structured, this could, in principle, yield cost savings, although this cannot be assumed.

“NASA could select a private entity to operate a commercial platform and grant space or request services as a tenant,” Lal said. “While this option is best suited to help LEO commercialization, it will likely require some level of a government subsidy for the commercial operator. In our analysis, an annualized payment of about $2 billion could cover the cost of the platform, even in a case of zero revenues.”

Gerstenmaier said NASA will take the information from the commercial studies to be conducted later this year to help plan the future of the International Space Station.

“We need to see what comes from industry and see what’s reasonable, and then do the budget analysis.”

Once NASA decides to retire and decommission the space station, the complex will be de-orbited over the Pacific Ocean, and most it will burn up during re-entry.

One company that has long planned to develop a commercial space station is Bigelow Aerospace, founded by Robert Bigelow, a billionaire who made his fortune in real estate.

Bigelow announced in February the formation of a subsidiary named Bigelow Space Operations that will manage sales, operations and customer service for Bigelow Aerospace’s space stations. Bigelow has an experimental expandable module currently attached to the International Space Station, the company says it plans to launch two larger expandable modules in 2021.

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Bigelow said the new sales firm will spend “missions of dollars this year” to probe the market for a commercial space station.

“The time is now to quantify in detail the global, national and corporate commercial space market for orbiting stations,” the Bigelow statement said. “This subject has had ambiguity for many years.”

Source: NASA wrestles with what to do with International Space Station after 2024
« Ostatnia zmiana: Lipiec 16, 2021, 01:31 wysłana przez Orionid »

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #1 dnia: Czerwiec 09, 2018, 20:07 »
Senators reiterate opposition to ISS transition proposal
by Jeff Foust — June 6, 2018


Witnesses at a June 6 Senate hearing said uncertainty about the future of the ISS after 2025 is already starting to deter some companies and scientists who had been interested in using it. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — Members of the Senate space subcommittee used a June 6 hearing to once again express opposition to the administration’s proposal to end NASA funding of the International Space Station in 2025.

In the second in a series of hearings on the future of the ISS, witnesses from industry and other organizations said either transitioning the ISS to commercial operators, or shifting to new commercial space stations, may not be feasible by that time, and that even consideration of the proposal may scare away potential station users.

“We understand that commercialization is imminent, and we are fully supporting this process. However, to achieve this goal, enough time must be given both for a smooth transition and for the nation to realize a return on investment,” said Cynthia Bouthot, director of commercial innovation and sponsored programs at the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), which operates the portion of the ISS designated a national laboratory.

Bouthot said setting a 2025 date for ending NASA funding of the ISS, and potential the station as a whole, is starting to concern researchers. “We’ve already had anecdotal evidence of companies that we’re working with to try to get to the station hesitate once that 2025 date was announced,” she said.

On the heels of a Washington Post report where NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency was in discussions with several companies about taking over the station, an executive with one major aerospace company expressed skepticism that the ISS itself could be operated profitably.

Jim Chilton, senior vice president for space and launch at Boeing, said at the hearing that it costs NASA about $3.2 billion a year to operate the U.S. segment of the ISS. That includes $1.8 billion in cargo and crew transportation costs, $1.1 billion in operations of the station itself and $300 million for research. By contrast, commercial activities at the station today produce only about $100 million in revenue. “That’s a big gap,” he said.

Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, was skeptical cost savings that would be created by ending funding of the ISS would provide significant additional resources for NASA’s deep space exploration efforts. “Commercial alternatives would likely cost significantly more to sustain than the ISS, creating an entirely new development program while providing a fraction of the existing capability,” he said.

One of those companies planning commercial space stations is Axiom Space. Michael Suffredini, the president and chief executive of the company and a former NASA ISS program manager, said NASA should approach any transition to commercial space stations carefully. “One concept must remain inviolable: the United States must not relinquish uninterrupted access to LEO for its astronauts,” he said.

He did press NASA, though, to accelerate efforts to bring on commercial modules to the ISS. In 2016, NASA issued a request for information from companies interested in using a docking port on the station. The agency has yet to follow up that request with a competition and is now instead seeking proposals for LEO commercial market studies.

“NASA must allow companies to compete for the right to attach one or more modules to the ISS as soon as possible,” he said. That competition, he said, should take place in parallel with the commercialization studies, and not wait until after the studies are completed at the end of this year.

Senators at the hearing made it clear even before the witnesses testified that they remained opposed to ending NASA funding of the ISS by 2025, particularly since it has the technical ability to operate through at least 2028. “It is my firm belief that it would be irresponsible for the United States government to prematurely end the life of the International Space Station before maximizing American taxpayer investment,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the subcommittee.

Cruz had previously criticized the proposal, as had Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member of the full Senate Commerce Committee. “Why in the world would you want to take a large, multi-year investment of $100 billion and suddenly deorbit it and let it burn up on reentry?” Nelson asked.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), ranking member of the space subcommittee, did not participate in last month’s hearing on the ISS, but appeared in lockstep with his colleagues at this hearing. “We simply cannot pull the plug on the International Space Station without a plan in place for what comes next,” he said.

A conversation “on steroids”

A few hours before the hearing, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine met with reporters at NASA Headquarters. One of the topics he addressed was the future of the ISS and any transition to commercial operations of the station, or commercial space stations.

“There are companies that are interested in managing the ISS from a commercial perspective. That exists right now, and that existed before I got to NASA,” he said. The issue, he said, is what circumstances would allow those companies to close their business plans by operating the ISS, or some elements of it.

“No decisions have been made” about the station’s future, he emphasized. “There’s a range of options here. What the president’s budget request did is it has started this conversation, and kind of put it on steroids.”

One big issue for any ISS transition, he said, is to avoid any gap in human activity to low Earth orbit. “We saw what happened with the space shuttles,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen with low Earth orbit.”

The other major issue, he said, is figuring out how much NASA wants to spend on activities in LEO after the end of the ISS, and how much commercial activities can cover the costs of such activities. “There are opportunities here for us to look at options, a range of options, that ultimately enable us to go further, which is the objective,” he said.

Any decision on the future of the ISS, he said, will be done in consultation with the other countries involved on the station, discussions that are already underway. “Nothing will be done outside of the consent and advice of our international partners.”

Source: Senators reiterate opposition to ISS transition proposal

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #2 dnia: Czerwiec 09, 2018, 23:17 »
Może nie starczyć kasy na to żeby jednocześnie budować DSG, i utrzymywać przy życiu ISS.

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #3 dnia: Lipiec 09, 2018, 18:52 »
Trump wants NASA out of the ISS operations business. Easier said than done.
by Debra Werner — July 5, 2018


Expedition 56 Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA in the Destiny laboratory module June 11 with gear for measuring and analyzing red blood cell function to help doctors understand how blood cell production is altered in microgravity. Credit: NASA Johnson via Flickr

This article originally appeared in the June 25, 2018 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

Since President Trump’s 2019 budget called for ending International Space Station funding in 2025, Congress held hearings, NASA published an ISS Transition Report and U.S. companies advertised plans for new outposts. Still, it’s not clear how that transition will occur, a fact highlighted by the recent confusion over NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine’s comments to The Washington Post about companies taking over ISS operations. For clues on the space station’s current status and the transition ahead, SpaceNews spoke with Sam Scimemi, ISS director at NASA headquarters.


Sam Scimemi, Director of NASA’s International Space Station Division. Credit: NASA via Flickr

ISS was built over many years. Are there parts of the structure that require more maintenance and other parts that require less?

We are getting a lot of good run time on all our systems. Our electrical power systems have generally performed quite well and are performing beyond their mean time between failures. Some of our life support systems have had not as much luck. However, other parts of our life support systems like the oxygen generation system has pretty much performed as it was designed. Some parts are doing better than expected other parts are not doing as well as expected.

It is all certified through 2024 at least. We’ve been working with international partners to have everything certified all the way to 2028. It doesn’t mean every single nut and bolt is certified that way. A lot of systems can be replaced along the way. Not everything was designed to last that long.

People talk about dismantling ISS and keeping pieces of it? Is that possible?

It’s certainly possible. Some people have been looking at that. We have not looked at a specific configuration. But if you’ve followed the assembly, we’ve reconfigured station many times. Some elements weren’t launched until 2009, 2010, 2011. You add 30 years to that and some parts of station could last all the way to the year 2040. There will be a lot of life left in any of these elements in the next decade.

This is called out in the ISS Transition Report. We talk about possible futures in low Earth orbit (LEO): continue station the way it is; continue station with private industry elements; reconfigure station with private-industry elements along with elements that already exist or new free flight elements. All those things are open right now.

Is it important to NASA to ensure there’s no gap in human presence in LEO?

Have you read the ISS Transition Report? We have several principles for ISS transition in LEO. One is continuity in human spaceflight. It means we have continuity in our mission. We expect to have continual access to LEO. But for deep space, if we go to the moon, we don’t expect to have access all that often, maybe once a year. Having a human spaceflight program only once a year is probably not a sustainable thing based on NASA’s requirements and the requirements of all of our international partners on station. We think the leadership aspect is important for the continuity, not only for the mission but also for the industrial base, having an industrial base that is able to build rockets, build crew capsules, cargo vehicles, on-orbit spacecraft. It’s important that we also keep continuity in our industrial base and knowledge here on the ground in order to continue spaceflight across multiple decades.

What else should people know about the transition from ISS to something else in LEO whether it happens in 2024, 2028 or some other time?

There are many different futures possible. What’s important to NASA and the U.S. government are: the continuity of human spaceflight, leadership of the United States in human spaceflight not only in LEO but also for exploration, long-term research and astronaut opportunities. Reducing cost is also important. We will pursue that with these public private partnerships, for instance. All those are important to us. They all stem from the first two: continuity of human spaceflight and the leadership in human spaceflight.

The Bigelow Beam module was deployed on ISS in 2016. How has that turned out?

The original agreement was for expanding it, making sure it worked and two years of collecting data, measuring the radiation environment and the microbe environment and atmospheric environment, the outgas and those things. Then we modified the agreement with Bigelow to use it as a storage closet, a place for the astronauts to put things in. It’s worked out well.

At the Space Symposium, companies presented plans for private space stations. They discussed having several platforms in LEO. Do you envision that?

It is easy to envision the supply. We have in this country more supply than customers. What really needs to be worked on is the development of the demand. Where is all this demand coming from? Is the demand still just NASA? A large part of what we do with the National Lab and CASIS is try to build the demand on the research and technology development side to have customers for all this supply. I understand some of these companies also want to fly tourists. That’s also addressed in the report. In order to sustain this industry, look at the transportation side, $1.7 million, that is going to be hard to maintain just on a tourist’s budget. It doesn’t mean it can’t be done but it may take a little more time for the cost of transportation to come down quite a bit so people’s business models match their expectations.

Is the cost of transportation coming down?

For crew it is probably too early for that. Commercial crew hasn’t even flown yet. On our side it is a little bit premature to have a definitive trend yet.

Once there is more demand, would that lead to lower cost transportation?

That is the theory of free market principles. In human spaceflight it is not truly an open market. It is mostly government-sponsored. Both here in this country and in Russia and China. It is a constrained market. If a U.S. company comes up with a crew seat price, if China or Russia wants that business, since they are government organizations, they will probably just undercut that price. Not to say that they would but that is how things work in the real world. When we talk about ISS transition and our leadership position, those considerations will have to be factored in.

You’ve said ISS is hitting its stride. How so?

Beginning last year, we started to see a real interest in utilizing ISS from private industry like big pharmaceutical companies, consumer products companies and especially other government agencies like the National Institutes of Health. They have ramped up their utilization of ISS. On the NASA side, for our exploration research program, we are starting to knock out some of the risks in human spaceflight, like bone and muscle loss mitigation strategies. Those risks are starting to come down now as we work through all that research. And we are starting to fly some of our life support technology systems for testing. That will be coming online in the next few years as well. We are hitting all cylinders.

You’ve also said ISS hasn’t reached its full potential. What more could be done?

On the exploration side, there is still more work to be done at integrating across all of our disciplines, across operations, across system demonstrations, across human health and performance, integrating all of those together in a simulation of a long-duration deep space exploration activity on ISS. On the other side, there is still room for growth on the National Lab side on external users. There is still a lot of growth left in that area as far as volume.

There’s a Washington Post article about NASA talking with a commercial consortium about taking over ISS operations. What does that mean?

Our intention is to be able to turn over day-to-day operations of the ISS to private industry by the middle of the next decade. Within that, there could be partnerships between companies that actually operate the ISS based on a particular business plan that they all have.

As far as NASA’s direct plan, our plan is to turn over the day-to-day operations to private industry to be able to operate modules in space, to be able to do all the planning, training, real-time operations, sustainment, engineering. NASA could be just one of many customers for LEO.

What does it cost to maintain the space station annually?

Its budget is separated into operations, use or research and transportation. The transportation is the largest part of the ISS budget. It is just over half of the budget. The budget this year was about $1.7 billion just for transportation, cargo and crew. The other part of it is operations and utilization.

I have a hard time imaging any industry consortium paying the cost of ISS operations and maintenance. Would an industry consortium have to do that?

NASA plans to pay for what we want in LEO. We are going to pay for our research, pay for our astronaut training, pay for having astronauts in orbit. We’ll pay for all the things that are important to NASA, including international partnerships. We are encouraging private industry to go find other long-term customers for the ISS or for other platforms.

I understand private operations would cost less but there are astronauts onboard. It seems risky to turn over ISS operations.

This transition is going to take place over many years. We are not going to throw one big switch and all the sudden NASA civil servants aren’t working and it’s all private industry. 2025 is several years from now. We have plenty of time and our industrial base has got much more experience than it used to have. Before, we had only a small number of companies that knew anything about spaceflight. Now, it’s a lot larger number with a lot of new entrants.

Our intention is to build up the knowledge base and the industrial base so private industry could take over large parts of what NASA does. That doesn’t mean NASA just walks away. In the International Space Station Transition Report, we talk about only transitioning those things that make sense. We are only going to transition the things industry, NASA and our stakeholders are comfortable transitioning.

Some things we are probably not going to transition like crew health and safety. We probably are not going to transition our life support system work or [extravehicular activities]. We’ll keep that in the government. Of course, we have yet to work through what all those things are.

Source: Trump wants NASA out of the ISS operations business. Easier said than done.

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #3 dnia: Lipiec 09, 2018, 18:52 »

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #4 dnia: Sierpień 07, 2018, 00:08 »
NASA Inspector General skeptical of ISS commercialization plans
by Jeff Foust — July 31, 2018


A new report by NASA's Office of Inspector General is skeptical that NASA can hand over the ISS to the private sector by 2025 and free up funding for use on exploration programs. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — A new report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General raises doubts about the feasibility of NASA’s plans to transfer ISS operations to the private sector in 2025.

In a report published July 30, the office also warned that NASA’s research goals may not be completed by 2024 as expected, requiring additional time on the ISS or another facility in order to meet the agency’s deep space exploration requirements.

The report was skeptical of plans, announced in the agency’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal in February and a transition report submitted to Congress in March, to end direct federal funding of ISS operations in 2025, transferring all or part of it to the private sector in a bid to save money and support the commercialization of low Earth orbit.

“Based on our audit work, we question the viability of NASA’s plans as outlined in its ISS Transition Report, particularly with regard to the feasibility of fostering increased commercial activity in low Earth orbit on the timetable proposed,” the report states.

The report adds that NASA’s transition report “includes several overly optimistic assumptions related to revenues and costs of operating a future private low Earth orbit platform that call into question the validity of the analysis.” For example, the report assumes cargo transportation at a cost of $20,000 a kilogram, while NASA’s current Commercial Resupply Services contracts with Northrop Grumman and SpaceX charge about three times as much.

The report also notes that the “scant” level of commercial activity on the ISS throughout the station’s history raises additional skepticism about the viability of a commercially operated station by the mid-2020s.

The report is not the first time the agency’s inspector general has raised doubts about NASA’s ISS commercialization plans. “We question whether a sufficient business case exists under which private companies can create a self-sustaining and profit-making business using the ISS independent of significant government funding,” Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general, said at a May hearing by the Senate’s space subcommittee on the future of the ISS.

The report also noted that NASA may find it difficult to complete some its human health research and technology development projects by 2025. The agency said at least eight human health risks for future long-duration missions will need testing through 2024 or beyond, in some cases extending out through 2027. Several technology development efforts may also need one or two years of additional work on ISS.

As part of that research, the report endorsed the flight of more one-year missions, similar to the one flown by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko in 2015–2016. NASA researchers, the report stated, identified “as many as 11 human health risks would benefit from these additional one‐year missions because they would provide more data than standard 6‐month ISS missions on how spaceflight impacts the human body over extended periods of time.” NASA accepted a recommendation to study such additional one-year missions in a response included in the report.

One solution to both the commercialization concerns and the research needs would be to extend the ISS beyond the mid-2020s. Engineering analyses have concluded that the ISS can be operated safety through at least 2028, the report stated.

Any extension, though, would come at a price, namely the $3–4 billion a year that NASA currently spends on ISS operations that the agency had hoped to redirect towards exploration programs, such as missions to the moon and ultimately Mars. “As a result, NASA managers will face significant challenges operating the ISS under its current model while attempting to fund NASA’s other potential space exploration initiatives such as the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a lunar orbit/landing, and preparations for a crewed Mars mission,” the report concluded.

However, even if the ISS ended in 2025, the office argued that NASA would not be able to apply that full funding to other programs. “Specifically, even with termination of most Station activities, NASA would still be required to pay for any remaining Agency activities in low Earth orbit including any crew and cargo transportation services – projected to cost $1.8 billion in 2024,” it stated.

The report comes as a Senate committee prepares to take up a bill that would extend ISS operations. The Space Frontier Act, S. 3277, includes language amending previous NASA authorization acts to extend the life of the ISS from 2024 to 2030. The bill, introduced last week by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), will be marked up by the Senate Commerce Committee Aug. 1.

Source: NASA Inspector General skeptical of ISS commercialization plans
http://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3104.msg121000#msg121000

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #5 dnia: Październik 03, 2018, 23:02 »
ISS partners show interest in station extension
by Jeff Foust — October 2, 2018 [SN]


International Space Station as seen from Space Shuttle Atlantis in this July 2011 photograph. Credit: NASA
Officials from ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos showed an interest in extending the ISS beyond 2024, perhaps to 2030, even as NASA seeks to end direct federal funding of the station in 2025. Credit: NASA


BREMEN, Germany — NASA’s partners in the International Space Station are showing a growing interest in extending the station’s operations beyond 2024 regardless of NASA initiatives to end direct funding of the station around that time.

During an Oct. 1 press conference at the 69th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here, representatives of three ISS partner agencies said they were open to extending the station’s operations to 2028 or 2030 in order to maximize the investment they’ve made in the facility as a platform for research and preparation for exploration activities beyond Earth orbit.

Jan Woerner, director general of the European Space Agency, said the issue could come up at the next triennial meeting of the ministers of ESA’s member nations, scheduled for late 2019. “At the ministerial meeting next year, the ministerial council, I will propose to go on with ISS as well as the lunar Gateway,” he said. “I believe that we will go on.”

At a separate briefing Oct. 2, Woerner emphasized the use of the station as a research platform and encouraged greater commercial activities there. “I believe we should use the ISS as long as feasible,” he said. “I always thought 2024 was the end, but now I learned it is 2028, and yesterday I learned it’s 2030. So, I will try to convince the ESA member states that ESA should be a partner in the future.” However, he noted that ESA could defer the decision on a post-2024 ISS extension until its following ministerial meeting in 2022.

Hiroshi Yamakawa, president of the Japanese space agency JAXA, also emphasized the importance of making the most of the station. “I’d like to make the most of the present ISS,” he said. “We have to maximize the output of the ISS. Whenever the deadline comes to the ISS, we would like to participate in the ISS and maximize output.”

He added, though, that there was not a pressing need for Japan to decide on an ISS extension. “JAXA is requesting budgets annually, so I think in that sense JAXA is quite flexible.”

Dmitry Loskutov, head of international relations at the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said Russia already expected an extension. “We anticipate the continued functioning until 2028 or 2030,” he said.

That extension, he said, would be a subject of upcoming discussions between Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine when they meet at the Baikonur Cosmodrome around the Oct. 11 launch of a Soyuz spacecraft to the station. It will also come up at a conference in Moscow in November marking the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first ISS segment, Zarya, attended by the ISS partners.

Evgeny Mikrin, general designer at RSC Energia, also endorsed an ISS extension. “I think we really should continue ISS utilization up until 2030” to maximize its utilization, he said, speaking through an interpreter during an IAC panel discussion Oct. 1. He stated that Russia still planned to launch three modules to its segment of the ISS in the coming years to expand its capabilities.

Bridenstine, at the heads-of-agencies press conference Oct. 1, alluded to legislation introduced in both the House and Senate that contain provisions to authorize an extension of the ISS until 2030. That language stems from congressional criticism to plans by NASA in its 2019 budget proposal to end direct ISS funding in 2025 as part of an initiative to enhance commercialization of low Earth orbit.

“The vision that we have for low Earth orbit in general is a vision for commercialization,” Bridenstine said, with the private sector eventually taking over operations of space stations or similar facilities in LEO and with NASA as one of potentially many customers.

“The president’s budget request was very clear that we would end direct funding for the ISS in 2025. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the ISS will be over,” he said, citing as one option an international consortium of companies taking over the station. “But it is also true that while I do support the commercialization of low Earth orbit, Congress doesn’t always agree with me and Congress doesn’t always agree with the president, so what gets put into law could be very different from what our objectives are.”

Source: ISS partners show interest in station extension

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #6 dnia: Październik 13, 2018, 15:54 »
Izba reprezentantów popiera plany wydłużenia finansowania ISS
BY ALEKSANDER FIUK ON 13 PAŹDZIERNIKA 2018


Międzynarodowa Stacja Kosmiczna / Źródło: NASA/ESA

Na posiedzeniu podkomisji ds. przestrzeni kosmicznej z 26 września 2018 zaproponowano Leading Human Spaceflight Act, który zapewniałby przedłużenie finansowania ISS przez państwo do 2030 roku.

Leading Human Spaceflight Act został zaproponowany przez Briana Babina, przewodniczącego podkomisji ds. przestrzeni kosmicznej. Dokument zapewniłby finansowanie Międzynarodowej Stacji Kosmicznej do 2030 o ile nie pojawiłaby się do tego czasu tańsza i łatwiejsza alternatywa z sektora prywatnego. Kilka tygodni wcześniej w amerykańskim Senacie również wyrażono poparcie dla tej idei.

ISS jest klejnotem w koronie amerykańskiego programu kosmicznego. Pozycja lidera, jaką USA mają na niskiej orbicie okołoziemskiej, przynosi ogromne korzyści tutaj, na Ziemi – mówił Babin.

Podczas swojego wystąpienia zapytał on także słuchaczy, wśród których byli Bill Gerstenmeier oraz trzech dyrektorów różnych ośrodków badawczych NASA, o to jak Agencja zamierza zapobiec kolejnej luce w potencjale strategicznym, jaką byłaby utrata obecności na LEO.

Podchodzimy do sprawy bardzo poważnie. Zobaczymy, czym zainteresowany jest sektor prywatny przemysłu i jakie są jego możliwości odnośnie tego przedsięwzięcia, a następnie dokonamy płynnego przekazania w taki sposób, by nie kończyć nagle jednego projektu i zaczynać następnego.  – odpowiedział Gerstenmeier, odwołując się do planu przekazania ISS opublikowanego wcześniej tego roku przez NASA.

Zaproponowana w Izbie dyrektywa znajduje poparcie w Space Frontier Act, uchwalonym przez senacką podkomisję ds. przestrzeni kosmicznej w sierpniu 2018 roku i oczekuje zaaprobowania przez cały Senat. Jeden z inicjatorów Space Frontier Act, a także przewodniczący komisji, która go uchwaliła, Ted Cruz zwrócił uwagę na fakt, że amerykańscy podatnicy zainwestowali ponad 100 mld USD w Międzynarodową Stację Kosmiczną, i stwierdził, że jest bardzo istotnym, by obywatele mogli korzystać z osiągnięć programu jak najdłużej.

Nie możemy oddać LEO na wyłączność w ręce Chin ani żadnego innego państwa. Stany Zjednoczone muszą rozważyć przedłużenie stałej obecności załogi na orbicie, nawet po zakończeniu programu ISS.  – mówił Cruz w odniesieniu do planów umieszczenia przez Chińczyków pierwszej nieprzerwanie zamieszkanej stacji orbitalnej w 2022 roku na niskiej orbicie okołoziemskiej.

Jim Bridenstine, szef NASA, stanowczo odpowiedział senatorowi, że Agencja nie zamierza przeprowadzać wcześniejszej deorbitacji stacji. Ponadto stwierdził on także, że możliwość wydłużenia operacyjności ISS do 2030 roku jest prawdopodobna, lecz będzie zależeć przede wszystkim od ryzyka i kosztów.


Jim Bridenstine / Corey Lack Pictures

24 września 2018 Bridenstine wskazał wpływ, jaki przedłużenie finansowania ISS przez Agencję miałoby na inne jej plany.

Jeśli Senat chce nam dać dużo więcej pieniędzy, by kontynuować amerykańską obecność na ISS, chętnie je przyjmiemy. Jednak w rzeczywistości nasz budżet będzie bardzo obciążony i jeżeli chcemy zbudować stację księżycową oraz wysyłać ludzi na Marsa, będziemy musieli skomercjalizować Międzynarodową Stację Kosmiczną.

Temat dalszych rozmów partnerskich miedzy USA a Federacją Rosyjską w kontekście ISS oraz dalszych lotów eksploracyjnych był również kontynuowany podczas wizyty Jima Brindenstine’a w Rosji w drugim tygodniu października po zakończeniu Międzynarodowego Kongresu Astronautycznego w Bremie.

Źródło: Izba reprezentantów popiera plany wydłużenia finansowania ISS

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #7 dnia: Luty 25, 2019, 17:48 »
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn plans to file measure extending U.S. operations of the space station to 2030
By Alex Stuckey Updated 9:34 pm CST, Friday, February 22, 2019 [Houston Chronicle]


U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, visits the Houston Space Center on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019, in Clear Lake. The senator sat down with leaders at NASA and local space companies to announce the introduction of a bill to extend authorization for the International Space Station, direct NASA to develop a next-gen spacesuit to allow exploration beyond low earth orbit, and promote NASA partnerships with private space innovators. Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer

With NASA’s funding at the mercy of the annual Congressional budgetary process, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said he wants to provide predictability in at least one area of the country’s space program: the International Space Station.

“As we’ve seen, some of [NASA’s] stream of funding has been uncertain and interrupted by things like sequestration and shutdowns,” Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, told the Houston Chronicle Friday. “Before we can attract private capital, they are going to need some greater certainty.”

The Texas Congressman plans to file a measure in the coming weeks to extend the country’s operation of the space station to 2030. It currently is scheduled to end by the end of 2024, but Congress can extend it.

Cornyn on Friday toured Space Center Houston, the museum side of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and participated in a round-table discussion with local technology and space companies.

Representatives from those companies support Cornyn’s proposal.

Mark Mulqueen, Boeing’s space station program manager, said that he is in favor of increased life of the orbiting laboratory because Boeing and SpaceX are on the cusp of having commercial spacecrafts ready to fly.

In 2014, the two companies were tapped to build commercial vehicles to transport NASA astronauts to and from the space station as a means to alleviate the country’s reliance on Russian. The Russians have been transporting American astronauts since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program shuttered.

“Right now, the only market for the commercial crew is ISS so longevity to 2030 is so important for them,” Mulqueen said. Both companies are tentatively scheduled to fly crewed test flights for their spacecrafts by the end of this year.

But the continuation of the space station also impacts people who live in the community, said Robbie McAfoos, president of Houston-based Barrios Technology.

“Thousands of people here ... choose to work at the space agency,” McAfoos said. “They do this for their personal well being and for the well being of the country and the uncertainty of what will happen to the space station is hard on them.”

Last year, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, filed a similar measure in Congress, a response to President Donald Trump’s proposal to end federal funding for the space station in 2024, allowing commercial entities to take over its operation by 2025.

Cruz, a Republican from Texas, and many other congressional leaders were against Trump’s plan, questioning whether commercial companies could step up to fill the government’s funding role. Just in fiscal year 2017, NASA spent $1.45 billion on the space station — and that doesn’t count costs to transport astronauts and supplies there.

Cruz’s bill also would have extended U.S. operation of the space station to 2030. The measure was approved unanimously by the Senate in December, but failed to pass in the House.

This fact doesn’t deter Cornyn, however.

“It takes perseverance,” he said. “In Congress, sometimes it takes years to get things done.”

Experts have said the station can be safely operated until at least 2030.

Cornyn’s measure also would require NASA to create a strategy to retire the space station “to ensure that there is a smooth transition to an eventual successor platform,” according to a one-page summary of the measure, and would direct the agency to create next generation spacesuits for future exploration endeavors.

Additionally, it would make human settlements in space a national goal.


Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey

Source: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/U-S-Sen-John-Cornyn-plans-to-file-measure-13638237.php

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #8 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:22 »
NASA seeking ideas for use of space station docking port
by Jeff Foust — July 15, 2016 [SN]


Michael Suffredini of Axiom Space showed July 14 this concept of a commercial module his company is considering for use on the International Space Station that could later serve as part of a standalone commercial space station. Credit: Axiom Space

SAN DIEGO — As two companies move forward with plans to develop commercial modules for use on the International Space Station as precursors to independent space stations, NASA is soliciting concepts for use of a space station docking port.

NASA issued a request for information (RFI) July 1 about how “limited availability, unique International Space Station capabilities” could be used to support economic development in low Earth orbit. “This RFI is being used to determine private market interest in using unique ISS capabilities that have limited availability in order to advance economic development in LEO,” the document states.

That request specifically mentions future use of the aft docking port on the Node 3, or Tranquility, module. That port is currently occupied by the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), installed on the station earlier this year for a two-year test. It would thus be available for use by other modules as soon as 2018, when the BEAM is removed from the station.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, mentioned the RFI at a July 13 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, saying NASA was seeking input for how industry could use the port and how the agency could work with companies to gain access to it.

“We essentially have one of the ports on the space station that we’re going to make available to the private sector to go utilize how they want,” he said. NASA would provide power and life support for that module in addition to the docking port itself, he said, while the company using the port would purchase cargo and crew transportation services from the private companies that provide similar services for NASA.

“We asked them for ideas of how they would use this port,” Gerstenmaier said of the RFI. “It will be exciting to see what the private sector tells us in this response. How can they use this unique asset?”

Gerstenmaier suggested that a company might seek to install their own module at that port as a precursor for an independent station once the ISS is retired. “And then at some point, when the station’s life is exceeded, they could undock from the station and be the basis for the next private sector station,” he said.

At least two companies have expressed an interest in placing a private module on the ISS as a precursor to a full-fledged commercial space station. In April, Bigelow Aerospace announced it was in discussions with NASA about installing one of its B330 modules on the ISS as soon as 2020.

Robert Bigelow, president of Bigelow Aerospace, did not specifically mention that proposal during a panel session at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference here July 14. He did state that the company was on schedule to have two B330 modules ready for launch by 2020. “Things are looking very good so far,” he said.

Bigelow said after the panel session that Bigelow was still in discussions with NASA about installing a B330 on the station. “We have made a formal proposal to do that,” he said. “We would be really excited to do that with NASA, and we gave them a tremendous deal.” He said, though, that he was not certain if Bigelow Aerospace planned to respond to the NASA RFI.

In June, Michael Suffredini, the former NASA ISS program manager who is now president of the commercial space division of Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies (SGT), announced the formation of a new venture, Axiom Space, to develop commercial space station modules. An initial module could be installed on the station as a precursor to a standalone station.

Speaking on the same panel as Bigelow, Suffredini showed an illustration of one concept for company’s proposed first module. That module, he said, would be sized to be as large as possible while still able to fit within existing launch vehicles and their payload fairings so it can go to the ISS on a single launch.

That module would be undocked at the end of the ISS’ life to form the core of a commercial space station, he said. “In our vision, the idea is that you have to build a station that can evolve as the market grows,” he said, confirming after his talk that his company planned to submit a response to the NASA RFI.

That evolutionary approach is essential, he said, since he believed that while long-term projections for market demand were promising, there wasn’t enough business now for a standalone commercial station. “Near term, however, we still have a long way to go.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-seeking-ideas-for-use-of-space-station-docking-port/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #9 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:22 »
NASA releases ISS commercialization plan
by Jeff Foust — June 7, 2019 [SN]


NASA's new low Earth orbit commercialization strategy includes offering a docking port on the ISS for commercial modules. Credit: NanoRacks

WASHINGTON — NASA unveiled a multi-pronged effort June 7 to increase commercial use of the International Space Station, from changes in policy to making a docking port available for commercial modules.

The plan, announced at an event at the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York, is the latest push by NASA to encourage both increased commercial use of the ISS while building up a supply of commercial facilities that could eventually succeed the station.

“We need to think of a different way of doing business,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations. “We have no idea what kinds of creativity and literally out-of-this-world ideas can come from private industry.”

The initiative announced by NASA features five elements. One is a new commercial use policy for the station that will allow activities ranging from manufacturing to marketing to take place on the station. That includes a pricing schedule for cargo to and from the station and services there.

Those activities must fall into one of three categories, said Robyn Gatens, deputy director of the ISS program at NASA Headquarters: a “connection” to NASA’s mission, stimulation of the LEO economy or needs to make use of the unique environment of microgravity.

NASA will also allow commercial crew providers to transport private astronauts to the station. The agency will allow two such missions per year to the station for no longer than 30 days each. Those astronauts will be charged about $35,000 per day by NASA for use of station resources, like life support, as well as the fees charged by the companies arranging the flights.

NASA plans to release a long-awaited solicitation to give companies access to a docking port on the Harmony module of the station to which they could attach a commercial module. That request for proposals, part of NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program, will be released June 14, and Gatens said NASA expects to select a company by the end of the year. A separate NextSTEP solicitation, to be released on July, will focus on studies of free-flying commercial space stations.

NASA had discussed offering that port to companies as far back as 2016, but held off on a formal solicitation until now. Gerstenmaier said the upcoming competition is informed by studies that NASA awarded last year to a dozen companies examining LEO commercialization concepts, and why it was now rolled into this broader initiative.

“We thought it was important that, rather than doing this piecemeal, one at a time, it was good to put it all together,” he said. “It took us a little bit of time to get that all together.”

The final two elements of the initiative focus on demand. NASA will seek proposals for studies on commercial uses of the station as well as identification of “real and perceived” barriers to using the station. It also released a forecast of its minimum long-term demand for services and activities in LEO.

NASA is encouraging greater commercial use of the station as part of a long-term vision that sees a gradual transition from the ISS to commercial space stations, of which NASA would be one of many customers. That would, in turn, free up NASA resources for its exploration plans, such as returning humans to the moon.

NASA, though, has backed away from proposals last year to end direct federal funding of the ISS by 2025. The end of station is less certain now, although there have been efforts in Congress to extend NASA’s authorization to operate the station through 2030.

The main principle in NASA’s eventual transition from the ISS, Gatens said, “is that there will be no gap in human spaceflight in low Earth orbit.” With this new initiative, “we’re hoping that new capabilities can develop that can one day take over for the space station, and we will begin to do that transition when those capabilities become available.”

This approach, though, still leaves open questions about commercial utilization of the ISS. One issue is whether companies that perform research on the station can retain all their intellectual property (IP). “We think there’s enough protection there” in the new policy, Gerstenmaier said.

However, Mike Gold, chairman of the regulatory and policy committee of the NASA Advisory Council, said that the policy alone likely can’t address all industry concerns about IP rights, as NASA can’t waive the IP rights for other federal government agencies. His committee has raised that issue in their previous work, including at the council’s most recent meeting May 31.

“It has substantial chilling effects,” he said, particularly for those in the pharmaceutical industry. He said he hopes that an upcoming NASA reauthorization act will include language resolving those concerns.

Gerstenmaier said that NASA will be open to change policies or pricing in response to industry input. “This is the beginning of us actively starting an open dialogue with industry to figure out how we can open up space to commercial activities.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-releases-iss-commercialization-plan/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #10 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:22 »
NASA seeks proposals for commercial ISS modules
by Jeff Foust — June 23, 2019 [SN]


A NASA solicitation released June 21 is intended to lead to the addition of one or more commercial modules to the ISS by 2024. Credit: NanoRacks

WASHINGTON — NASA issued a call for proposals for commercial modules that could be added to the International Space Station, although one industry executive warns that such facilities may not be as lucrative as NASA believes.

NASA issued a call for proposals June 21 for “commercial destination development in low Earth orbit using the International Space Station.” The solicitation is an appendix to the agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP), a program that uses public-private partnerships to develop key exploration-related technologies.

Under the solicitation, NASA will eventually make available a docking port on the Node 2, or Harmony, module on the ISS for use by a commercial module. The language in the solicitation leaves open the possibility of establishing a “commercial segment” of the station there, consisting of multiple commercially developed elements.

NASA will initially award one or more studies for concept and business development, and may also fund early design work on those commercial modules. Those awards will lead “to subsequent task orders and an eventual decision point for prioritization of use of the ISS port,” NASA said in the solicitation.

The agency said in its solicitation it will reach that “decision point” regarding access to the Harmony docking port 12 to 18 months after initial awards. The selected company would then work to get its module or modules installed on the station no later than September 2024.

The solicitation is part of a broader strategy to enable commercialization of low Earth orbit announced by NASA June 7, which also includes pricing for commercial use of the station and enabling visits by private astronauts. NASA will also release a solicitation later this summer, as another NextSTEP appendix, to support development of commercial free-flyer destinations in LEO separate from the ISS.

NASA didn’t disclose the number of awards it plans to make or their size. The agency said in the solicitation that it intends to spend $561 million across both NextSTEP appendices to support development of commercial ISS modules and free-flyers.

That overall strategy is intended to gradually transition human activities in LEO from the ISS to commercial facilities. “NASA seeks to enable multiple privately owned and operated destinations in LEO that are commercially viable in the long term, providing services to the Government as one of many customers,” the solicitation states.

That was the message the agency also gave at a June 21 panel discussion by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies here. “All of those activities are really focused on helping industry build a business case,” said Doug Comstock, the commercial LEO liaison in NASA’s human exploration and operations mission directorate. “We anticipate that industry will be able to provide the R&D services and technology demonstration services in LEO that the agency needs at a much more efficient cost than NASA currently does with the ISS.”

The long-awaited solicitation for the ISS port was welcomed by companies that had for the last few years awaited such a move by NASA. They cautioned, though, that NASA shouldn’t expect such facilities to immediately be lucrative.

“I worry that now NASA believes in commercial so much they think it’s going to be billions of dollars in revenue in LEO,” said Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of NanoRacks, at the panel. “News flash: it’s not.”

Manber said that the international nature of the ISS, with facilities from different countries, will make it difficult for a single commercial entity to generate a lot of revenue. “It’s going to be difficult to extract optimal revenue, so we have to be realistic,” he cautioned.

Some NASA officials have suggested that commercial users of the ISS could defray the operating costs of the station, thus freeing up funding for use elsewhere, such as the Artemis program to return humans to the moon. “We do anticipate that the revenue that’s generated from these activities will reduce our cost to operate the International Space Station,” said Jeff DeWit, NASA’s chief financial officer, at a June 7 event in New York to unveil NASA’s LEO commercialization strategy. “That revenue can shift and help us in our mission to get to moon.”

However, NASA has acknowledged that, even with its price list for cargo transportation and other services, it is still subsidizing commercial activities on the station. Those prices “do not reflect full recovery of NASA’s costs” and may be adjusted, NASA stated.

Manber, though, noted that the support the agency is showing for commercial activities on the station is a far cry from the early days of his company. “When we started NanoRacks 10 years ago, we were the first company to own and market our own stuff on the space station,” he recalled. “There were fierce battles in 2009 as to how a private company could be on a taxpayer-funded platform, charge our own prices, keep the revenue.”

NASA has become far more open to commercial activities since then, he said. “We have matured and NASA has matured.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-seeks-proposals-for-commercial-iss-modules/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #11 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:23 »
NASA selects Axiom Space to build commercial space station module
by Jeff Foust — January 28, 2020 [SN]


Axiom Space ultimately plans to develop its own segment of the International Space Station with modules for research, habitation and other activities. Credit: Axiom Space

WASHINGTON — NASA has selected a startup led by a former International Space Station program manager to develop a commercial module for the station.

NASA announced Jan. 27 that Houston-based Axiom Space will win access to a docking port on the station, to which the company will install a commercial module for research and other applications. The agency said that it will begin negotiations on a formal contract with Axiom, with a five-year base period and a two-year option.

Axiom was founded in 2016 by Kam Ghaffarian, who previously led space industry engineering services company Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, and Michael Suffredini, who was program manager for the ISS at NASA for a decade prior to his retirement from the agency in 2015. The company has several former astronauts in leadership positions, including former NASA administrator Charles Bolden, listed as a “business development consultant” on the company’s website.

Axiom says it believes that experience, as well as an industry team that includes Boeing, Thales Alenia Space Italy, Intuitive Machines and Maxar Technologies, played a key role in its selection. “There is a fantastically steep learning curve to human spaceflight,” Suffredini, president and chief executive of Axiom, said in a company statement. “The collective experience at Axiom is quite far along it. Because we know firsthand what works and what doesn’t in LEO, we are innovating in terms of design, engineering and process while maintaining safety and dramatically lowering costs.”

The company has revealed few technical details about its proposed addition to the ISS, other than that the “Axiom Segment” will ultimately include a node module, research and manufacturing facility, crew habitat and “large-windowed” module for viewing the Earth. Axiom expects the first module to be launched in the second half of 2024.

NASA did not disclose in its statement why it selected Axiom for the module. The agency’s statement did feature laudatory comments from Texas’ two senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, as well as Rep. Brian Babin, whose district includes Axiom’s headquarters near the Johnson Space Center.

“This partnership between NASA and Axiom Space — a Houston, Texas original — illustrates how critically important the International Space Station is, and will continue to be, for developing new technologies for low Earth orbit and beyond, and for continuing America’s leadership in space,” Cruz said in the statement.

NASA had been studying making the docking port, on the station’s Node 2 or Harmony module, available to a commercial module for several years, issuing a request for information from industry on the topic in 2016. The effort got new life last June when the agency rolled out its low Earth orbit commercialization initiative, which offered the docking port through its Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program.

“Axiom’s work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research, and technology demonstrations in low Earth orbit,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in an agency statement.

That statement added that a separate effort under NextSTEP to support development of a free-flying commercial space station will go forward. NASA issued a draft solicitation for that in October, but did not set a date for when the final solicitation will be released.

That’s welcome news for another company developing commercial space stations. “Congrats to @Axiom_Space on attached to space station commercial module selection!” tweeted Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of NanoRacks, after the NASA announcement. “Eager to see NASA offering on free flyer which is overdue.”

Another company long thought to be interested in adding a commercial module to the ISS is Bigelow Aerospace, who already has a small experimental module, called BEAM, attached to the station. A company official didn’t respond to a request for comment on Bigelow’s plans in the wake of the NASA award to Axiom.


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-selects-axiom-space-to-build-commercial-space-station-module/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #12 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:23 »
Axiom wins NASA approval to attach commercial habitat to space station
January 28, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]


Axiom Space says it plans to attach multiple commercial modules to the International Space Station beginning in the latter half of 2024. Credit: Axiom Space

NASA has selected Axiom Space, a Houston-based startup partnering with Boeing and other aerospace contractors, to attach a commercial habitat to the International Space Station and begin constructing an orbiting complex that the company says could ultimately replace the international research outpost.

Axiom won a NASA competition to connect a commercial module to the forward port on space station’s Harmony module, or Node 2, officials announced Monday. NASA made available the port in a commercial solicitation last June, asking companies for proposals to join a public-private partnership with the space agency to develop and demonstrate technologies for a future commercial space station.

“Axiom’s work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research, and technology demonstrations in low Earth orbit,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a statement. “We are transforming the way NASA works with industry to benefit the global economy and advance space exploration. It is a similar partnership that this year will return the capability of American astronauts to launch to the space station on American rockets from American soil.”

NASA said it will begin negotiations with Axiom on a firm-fixed-price contract to build and deliver the module to the space station, with a five-year base performance period and a two-year option. NASA selected Axiom through a solicitation known as Appendix I in the space agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships 2, or NextSTEP 2, program designed to foster public-private partnerships in spaceflight.

Axiom was founded in 2016 by Kam Ghaffarian, an aerospace industry entrepreneur, and Mike Suffredini, who was NASA’s program manager for the International Space Station from 2005 until 2015.

“We appreciate the bold decision on the part of NASA to open up a commercial future in low Earth orbit,” Suffredini said in a statement. “This selection is a recognition of the uniquely qualified nature of the Axiom team and our commercial plan to create and support a thriving, sustainable, and American-led LEO ecosystem.”

NASA says it selected Axiom to provide at least one commercial module for attachment to the space station. But Axiom has more ambitious objectives.

Axiom says it plans to build and launch several modules to form the “Axiom Segment” of the International Space Station. The company said it targets launch of the first module in the latter half of 2024.

The elements planned by Axiom include a node module, an orbital research and manufacturing facility, a crew habitat, and a “large-windowed Earth observatory” that is similar in appearance to the International Space Station’s cupola module. Axiom said the new commercial segment will add more research and habitation facilities to the ISS, and provide “novel avenues of research in areas such as isolation studies and Earth observation.”

Research currently conducted on the ISS could be transferred to the new commercial facility gradually to prevent interruptions with the ISS is retired, Axiom said in a statement.

While its partnership with NASA is focused on connecting a module to the International Space Station, Axiom plans to detach its commercial modules when the ISS reaches its retirement date, forming a standalone, free-flying commercial orbital station. Before the International Space Station is decommissioned and the Axiom Segment is detached, Axiom aims to launch a solar power platform to provide the commercial modules the electricity and cooling previously provided by the ISS.



Michael Suffredini, CEO of Axiom Space, was NASA’s International Space Station program manager from 2005 until 2015. Credit: NASA

Axiom also plans to launch crewed flights to the ISS and the ISS/Axiom complex at a rate of about two to three missions per year, the company said in a statement.

The industry team assembled by Axiom includes Boeing and Thales Alenia Space of Italy. Boeing and Thales built most of the pressurized modules on the U.S. segment the International Space Station, and Boeing’s Starliner commercial crew capsule could fly private astronauts to and from the ISS and the Axiom station.

Other partners identified by Axiom include Intuitive Machines and Maxar Technologies. Intuitive Machines was also co-founded in Houston by Ghaffarian, and Maxar is a leading manufacturer of large commercial satellites, including the Power and Propulsion Element for NASA’s planned Gateway mini-space station to orbit the moon.

“Axiom exists to provide the infrastructure in space for a variety of users to conduct research, discover new technologies, test systems for exploration of the moon and Mars, manufacture superior products for use in orbit and on the ground, and ultimately improve life back on Earth,” Suffredini said in a statement. “As we build on the legacy and foundation established by the ISS program, we look forward to working with NASA and the ecosystem of current and future international partners on this seminal effort.”

The U.S. government is in the process of approving an extension to NASA’s support for the International Space Station to 2028 or 2030. By that time, NASA managers hope commercial operators like Axiom could take over management of a replacement space station in low Earth orbit.

“We know the space station can’t last forever, and we need to move as quickly as we can to make sure we don’t have a gap in low Earth orbit,” Bridenstine said.

Turning over operations in low Earth orbit to the private sector would allow NASA to focus government spending on deep space exploration, such as human missions to the moon and Mars.

“The goal is we need to make sure we don’t have a gap in low Earth orbit, so we need to accelerate as fast as possible commercial capabilities,” Bridenstine told Spaceflight Now last month. “That means we’ve got to have commercial resupply, commercial crew … and, of course, we need to have a day where we have commercial space stations.

“In order to have commercial space stations, we need demand for activities in low Earth orbit, commercial demand,” Bridenstine said. “So things like we’re working on on the International Space Station, things like industrialized biomedicine and advanced materials, those are two areas where I think there’s a lot of promise for a demand for human habitation in low Earth orbit.”

NASA released studies performed by 12 companies last May assessing potential growth of a commercial market for a crewed research facility in low Earth orbit. The studies submitted to NASA came from Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Boeing, Deloitte Consulting, KBRWyle, Lockheed Martin, McKinsey & Company, NanoRacks, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Nevada Corp., Space Adventures and Maxar.

Weeks after the studies were released, NASA announced it was opening up a port on the space station for a commercial company to connect its own module to the ISS. Axiom won the competition, and a NASA spokesperson said Monday that Axiom is the only company the agency will select for the Harmony port.

NASA also announced a pricing structure for private astronauts who launch on Boeing or SpaceX commercial crew spacecraft to live and work aboard the International Space Station.

There is already one experimental commercial module attached to the space station. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, was built by Bigelow Aerospace and launched to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo mission in 2016.

BEAM was built to test the viability of an expandable, or inflatable, soft-sided module to provide habitation for space crews, and NASA has been satisfied with the module’s performance. After analyzing technical results from the module’s first few years in orbit, NASA determined BEAM can safely remain at the ISS until at least 2028 to provide extra stowage volume.



Artist’s concept of Axiom’s space station, which the company says will be constructed while attached to the International Space Station, then detach to form an independent commercial research complex. Credit: Axiom Space

In an interview last month with Spaceflight Now, Bridenstine said developing a commercial market and commercial technology for space habitation has been a “stumbling block” for NASA.

The space agency’s earlier emphasis in commercialization focused on launch and transportation for cargo and crews. Now it’s time to take the next step and commercialize human operations in low Earth orbit, Bridenstine said.

“It is a stumbling block, and yes we need to solve it,” he said. “There are two elements to it. One is the demand for habitation, and one is the supply. NASA has made huge investments in the supply of launch for both cargo and crew. We need to probably make some bigger investments into habitation in low Earth orbit.

“So there is no doubt a need there where NASA needs to lead, and we’re going to have to step up to the plate and do that,” Bridenstine said.

“NASA intends to have a presence in low Earth orbit forever,” Bridenstine said. “We don’t ever want to leave low Earth orbit, but in order to do that, we’re going to have to be the customer. And probably at the beginning, we’re going to have to be the biggest customer. We’re going to probably have to be the tenant customer. But the goal is that over time, there will be enough demand to where there will be more habitation than just what NASA is needing.”

Other companies with concepts for a commercial space station in low Earth orbit, like Bigelow and NanoRacks, can propose their plans to NASA in a separate competition to develop a free-flying, independent commercial space station. NASA has not yet released the solicitation NextSTEP 2 solicitation for an orbital free-flyer.

“I would say there are commercial partners out there that don’t necessarily need the port (on ISS),” Bridenstine said.


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/28/axiom-wins-nasa-approval-to-attach-commercial-habitat-to-space-station/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #13 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:23 »
NASA to move ahead with plans to offer ISS docking port for private modules
by Jeff Foust — October 11, 2016 [SN]


Bigelow Aerospace received a NASA NextSTEP award in August to study adding one of the company's expandable modules (bottom center) to the International Space Station. Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

DALLAS — NASA will move ahead later this year with plans to offer a docking port and other resources to companies interested in adding a commercial module to the International Space Station, NASA and the White House said Oct. 11.

In a blog post published on the agency’s web site, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy John Holdren said that responses the agency received from a request for information (RFI) earlier this year led NASA to decide to proceed with some kind of competition or other mechanism for adding commercial modules to the station.

“As a result of the responses, this fall, NASA will start the process of providing companies with a potential opportunity to add their own modules and other capabilities to the International Space Station,” they wrote. The post did not offer more details about that opportunity.

In July, NASA issued an RFI, offering use of a docking port on the ISS currently occupied by the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), an experimental module developed by Bigelow Aerospace for NASA to demonstrate expandable module technology. NASA installed BEAM on the station in May and expects it to remain there for at least two years.

“We essentially have one of the ports on the space station that we’re going to make available to the private sector to go utilize how they want,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said at a July 13 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee. “We asked them for ideas of how they would use this port.”

The deadline for responding to the RFI was Aug. 12. NASA officials have not discussed in detail the responses they did receive, but have stated they were satisfied with what responding companies said.

“We were quite happy with the response,” said Sam Scimemi, ISS director at NASA Headquarters, during a Sept. 30 presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. He said NASA received several responses, but did not disclose a specific number, or identify which companies responded. “We were happy with the number and the quality. We’re going through the data right now.”

Several companies have previously expressed an interest in adding a module to the ISS for commercial or NASA use. In April, Bigelow Aerospace said it had made an unsolicited proposal to NASA to add one of its B330 modules under development to the ISS. In August, the company received an award from NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) to study that concept in more detail.

Axiom Space, a company led by former NASA station program manager Mike Suffredini, announced in June plans to develop a commercial module that could be added to the station as a precursor to a standalone commercial space station. Suffredini said in July that his company planned to respond to the NASA RFI.

Another venture that received a NASA NextSTEP award in August was a consortium called Ixion, which includes NanoRacks, Space Systems Loral and United Launch Alliance. Ixion will study converting a Centaur upper stage into a commercial ISS module.

The news about the ISS commercial module opportunity was part of a post that also discussed the NextSTEP program, which NASA hopes will lead to modules that can serve as deep space habitats to support the agency’s long-term human space exploration plans, including human missions to Mars in the 2030s. It also reiterated the administration’s desire for greater cooperation between government and the commercial sector.

“For humanity to successfully and sustainably settle the ‘final frontier,’ we will need to take advantage of investment and innovation in both the public and private sectors,” Bolden and Holdren wrote. “Neither will handle this immense challenge on its own.”

The blog post was published in conjunction with an essay by President Barack Obama on the website of news network CNN. That essay largely reiterated the space policy he announced in an April 2010 speech at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where he called for human missions to Mars by the mid-2030s.

“We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America’s story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time,” Obama wrote. “Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we’re already well on our way.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-to-move-ahead-with-plans-to-offer-iss-docking-port-for-private-modules/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
« Odpowiedź #14 dnia: Luty 17, 2020, 08:23 »
Companies pitch plans for commercial space station modules
by Jeff Foust — October 13, 2016 [SN]


Robert Bigelow discusses Bigelow Aerospace's plans to complete two B330 modules by 2020 at the ISPCS conference Oct. 12. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A day after NASA indicated its willingness to proceed with plans to add a commercial module to the International Space Station, two companies provided updates on proposals to supply such a module.

In back-to-back presentations at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) here Oct. 12, Axiom Space and Bigelow Aerospace said they’re proceeding with development of modules that could be added to the ISS as soon as 2020, depending on how NASA decides to select a module to add to the station.

Michael Baine, lead design engineer at Axiom Space, said that the company has completed a systems requirements review of its proposed module and plans to start a preliminary design review in December. The company has raised an undisclosed seed round of investment to support that work.

That module, he said, would be the largest module on the ISS. “It’s comparable to taking the U.S. laboratory module and Node 2 and putting them together,” he said. The module will have its own propulsion to allow it to dock with the station on its own after launch. It will also have its own life support and power systems, enabling it to support up to seven people at a time.



An illustration of Axiom Space’s proposed commercial ISS module. Credit: Axiom Space

Axiom envisions the module later detaching from the ISS once the space station is retired and forming the core of a commercial space station with the addition of other modules and related elements. “The Axiom plan is to start with a module, but then eventually leave ISS after end of life,” he said, “and then bring a lot of that science and core mission of the ISS with it to a new commercial space station.”

Bigelow Aerospace is moving ahead with plans announced earlier this year to have two of its B330 expandable modules ready for launch by 2020, with the option of installing one of them on the ISS. Robert Bigelow, chief executive of Bigelow Aerospace, said the company is currently working on a series of ground test articles that will allow the company to “leave our mistakes on the ground” prior to launching the B330 modules.

Bigelow has been working on expandable module technology for more than 15 years, but believes that the crew transportation systems needed to make commercial space stations viable are finally ready. “I have throttled my company back and fourth two or three times because of the transportation problem,” he said. “This is the first time that I have ever really decided that it looks like it’s close enough.”

A key issue for both companies, either for commercial ISS modules or standalone space stations, is getting the modules launched. Baine said that the large size of the their module limits their launch options, and that the company is “notionally” considering SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to launch it.

Bigelow said it’s planning to use the most powerful version of the Atlas 5 to launch its B330 modules, under an agreement his company announced with United Launch Alliance earlier this year. Bigelow said, though, that the company’s funds currently only cover the development the B330 modules, and not their launch.

Bigelow said the company may pay for the launches through either revenue from customers for those modules, or by taking in new investors. “It could be countries, it could be large companies, it could be people who aren’t even affiliated with the space world,” he said of potential investors.

Axiom Space and Bigelow Aerospace are two of 11 companies that responded in August to a NASA request for information (RFI) about adding a commercial module to the ISS, making use of a docking port currently occupied by the experimental BEAM module built by Bigelow Aerospace for NASA. In a blog post published on the NASA web site Oct. 11, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and John Holdren, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, said that the responses to the RFI led NASA to decide to move ahead with plans to offer that port to commercial users.

The agency is still evaluating the responses to the RFI, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, in an Oct. 12 speech at ISPCS. A challenge, he said, is figuring out how to best make that single docking port available given the interest from several companies. “We’re honestly struggling with that right now,” he said, adding NASA should provide more details about its plans by the end of the year.

“It’s going to be very interesting how they’re going to do that,” said Baine. He noted Axiom’s proposed module will have several docking ports of its own so that additional modules or spacecraft could dock to it. “We’re giving back more than we’re taking.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/companies-pitch-plans-for-commercial-space-station-modules/

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Odp: [ Spaceflight Now] NASA wrestles with what to do with ISS after 2024
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