NASA-Funded LEO Commercialization Studies Yield Diverse Results
Credit: Axiom Space
Last week, NASA released the results of low Earth orbit (LEO) commercialization studies the space agency commissioned 12 companies to conduct. The space agency is looking to become a tenant in LEO as it aims to return astronauts to the moon in 2024.
Credit: Blue Origin
The studies were conducted by a diverse group of companies ranging from big aerospace such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to up and comers like Blue Origin and NanoRacks to business consultants Deloitte and McKinsey&Company.
Credit: Boeing
The studies recommended a varied series of actions involving both the International Space Station (ISS) and private facilities. The plans were summarized in a PowerPoint presentation that the space agency released.
Credit: Deloitte
NASA and its international partners (Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada) have agreed to operate ISS through 2024. At that point, it would like to turn over station operations to the private sector and be a tenant on the facility. The space agency does not want to serve as the anchor tenant responsible for the bulk of expenses. (NASA currently spends about $3 billion per year operating the station.)
Credit: KBRwyle
The alternative to commercializing the space station would be to decommission it. That would be a lengthy, complicated an expensive process. Leading figures in Congress have opposed any effort to end ISS operations in 2024. They would like the program extended to 2028 or 2030.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
A key issue is when there would be sufficient demand to continue operating the station on a largely commercial basis. Some experts are skeptical about whether that will occur by 2024.
Credit; McKinsey&Company
NanoRacks, which arranges for experiments to be flown aboard ISS, has proposed converting an upper stage Centaur booster into a private space station.
Credit: NanoRacks
Northrop Grumman is interested in modifying Cygnus spacecraft used to deliver supplies to ISS as the basis for commercial station.
Credit: Northrop Grumman
Sierra Nevada Corporation believes that the cargo module it is developing for its Dream Chaser spacecraft could be used for a space station.
Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation
Space Adventures, best known for sending tourists to ISS aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, believes ISS could be converted into a private facility by 2028.
Credit: Space Adventures
SSl envisions satellite fabrication taking place on orbit.
Credit: SSL/Maxar
11 responses to “NASA-Funded LEO Commercialization Studies Yield Diverse Results”
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I think McKinsey and NanoRacks got the right of it – and even the former seems a bit optimistic (“90% of expected demand to be NASA, sovereign astronauts, and tourists” = “NASA will still have to pay for it”). The ISS is too large and expensive to be operated primarily by private sector tenants, so either NASA will have to continue funding nearly all of it (clearly a preference of some in Congress and perhaps NASA) or they’ll have to dump it in the ocean.
Commercially viable microgravity could be done and paid for in a much smaller station that’s either tended (versus occupied) or uncrewed.
is this available on line somewhere? Doug?
I think privatization of ISS is pretty much a hopeless project. The fundamental design of ISS requires that 5 of its 6 crew be, in essence, full-time custodians/warehousemen, with all six also needing to spend many “off-duty” hours doing prophylactic exercise to keep from being invalided by zero-G.
Any practical private station must be engineered from the start to require as little crew maintenance time as possible. Any private station that needs zero-G to pursue its economic activity should be either entirely untenanted or only very intermittently tenanted for short intervals. Any private station needing a full-time crew must either rotate in its entirety to provide artificial gravity or at least have a hab section that does.
I would emphasize that the “off duty” hours of mandated exercise are not off duty any more than your work commute is off duty. Similar to commuting, long hours or required exercise are a job requirement even if not officially “on the clock”. 14 hours a week in mandated exercise is similar to 14 hours a week in the commute in that very limited amounts of useful work can be done and it is not useful relaxation time either.
I think the next manned station should be design with oversight by a tight fisted businessman that knows about payroll costs. Would ISS have gone forward knowing that it is basically a one researcher facility with five expensive maintenance people?
If astronauts choose to be gym rats in their free time, I have no problem with that, but it seems a bit much to make it a requirement of the job. To return to your commute vs. exercise comparison, that would be equivalent to only hiring people who live at least 25 miles from your plant so they’d be sure to need to drive at least a certain number of hours a day to get to and from. Whackadoodle is what that is.
The Maxar SSL concept interests me.
I want to see ISS as a solar powersat/SEP tug where it raises itself to geosynch over time, with modules depressurized at end of life so at least it doesn’t wind up in Point Nemo.
Over deep time, old dead sats in geosynch are cleaned up–and the mass added to ISS/powersat.
I do not understand the wholesale buy-in by NASA that we’re going to the moon in 2024 just because Pence said we will. It isn’t going to happen. It’s a fantasy. There is no money to do it and nothing on the drawing board for how to do it in 5 years. It’s as though you tweet it and it will come to pass. Am I the only one seeing this?!
We could certainly go around the Moon by 2024 if it is a priority.
Developing the lander, space suits and surface exploration equipment (possibly including a vehicle) on top of the lunar orbit infrastructure that SLS/Orion seem to need to get a lander up and down — that could easily take more than 5 1/2 years.
Still, it all seems doable within less than 10. We definitely benefit from knowing it has been done before. It’s not something like Mars that many don’t believe is even possible in a practical sense any time soon and thus easily falls into a deadline-less technology development limbo.
Regardless, hopefully SpaceX makes all of this obsolete before the, say, 7 years the government effort may take
And the alternative is????
You’re suggesting that NASA treat the whole thing as a non-order? They’ve been told that’s the new plan, and from Bridenstine down to the envelope stuffer in the mailroom, those are their marching orders, no matter what they read in the papers.
I understand that NASA is a government agency and they have to reflect what the current administration says. My post is more of a reality check for the general public. We will not be on the moon by 2024. It’s not that I don’t think it would be great to be there in 2024, but reality says there is no money to accomplish it in anywhere near that time frame.
You ask, “And the alternative????” Keep reading graphic novels. They’re much more realistic and a hell of a lot cheaper.
…Keep reading graphic novels. They’re much more realistic and a hell of a lot cheaper…
Funny.
But I’m glad to see NASA and it’s contractors given a kick in the ass. Elon uses a similar method with his people, and calls an announced time frame “aspirational”. I like it.