by Margo Pierce
NASA’s Spinoff Publication

Anyone who has gotten a sofa stuck in a doorway on moving day knows how frustrating it is when there’s no other way in or out. The doorways on the International Space Station, or airlocks, have worked just fine for 20 years. But as more researchers and companies wish to expand the scope and size of the projects they send into low-Earth orbit, a larger doorway could help.

WASHINGTON, DC, OCTOBER 20, 2020 (Nanoracks PR) – Nanoracks is pleased to announce that both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have pre-purchased Bishop Airlock Cycles for agency and third-party use. The Nanoracks Bishop Airlock, launching this Fall to the International Space Station (ISS), is the first-ever commercially built, owned, and operated airlock on the ISS and provides five times the existing payload volume currently available on station.

ESA has pre-purchased five airlock cycles, and NASA six, with an option for four additional cycles at a discounted rate.

Translated from Japanese with Google Translate

TOKYO (JAXA/GITAI PR) — GITAI Japan Co., Ltd. and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will identify tasks that require robotics in outer space, and robots that perform these tasks. Aiming to acquire technology and provide services by robots, we will start business concept co-creation activities under the JAXA Space Innovation Partnership and and Co-creation (J-SPARC) initiative.

TOKYO, September 9, 2020 (GITAI/Nanoroacks PR) – In 2021, space robotics start-up GITAI, in collaboration with Nanoracks, will conduct a technical demonstration of a GITAI robot executing versatile tasks inside the Nanoracks’ Bishop Airlock Module installed on Node 3 of the International Space Station (ISS).

In this technical demonstration, GITAI’s space robot “S1” will be installed inside Bishop’s pressurized volume to conduct two experiments: IVA (Intra-Vehicular Activity) tasks such as switch and cable operations, and assembly of structures and panels to demonstrate its capability for ISA (In-Space Assembly). All operations conducted by the S1 GITAI robotic arm will be autonomous, followed by some tele-operations from Nanoracks’ in-house mission control.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 5, 2019 (Momentus PR) — Momentus (https://www.momentus.space), a provider of in-space shuttle services that move satellites between orbits, today announced a working relationship with NanoRacks to utilize the Bishop Airlock Module for Vigoride services from 2021 when the module will be installed on the International Space Station. The companies also plan to have a test launch of Vigoride in Q2-Q3 of 2020 using NanoRacks’ existing Kaber microsatellite deployer.