TITTUSVILLE, Fla. — NASA has added milestones and funding to agreements with two companies working on commercial space station concepts, using funding from a third agreement that ended last year.
NASA announced on January 5 that it has added a total of $99.5 million in funding to existing Space Act agreements with Blue Origin and Voyager Space. The companies received an initial agreement in December 2021 as part of NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, which accelerates the development of a commercial space station to replace the International Space Station.
Blue Origin, which is developing the Orbital Reef space station with Sierra Space and other companies, received a $42 million increase from its original $130 million. This increase includes work on the station’s life support systems as well as additional milestones for subsystem design review and technology maturation.
Voyager Space, which is partnering with Airbus Defense and Space to develop Starlab Station, received $57.5 million in additional funding on top of its $160 million award. This will work toward various development milestones for the station, as well as upgrades to Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft that will allow it to dock directly to the station rather than being secured to it with a robotic arm. There will also be some work done.
“The milestones target key technology and risk mitigation areas of the partners’ designs,” Phil McAllister, director of commercial space at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement about the revised agreement. “The milestone also includes additional hardware testing, which is critical to spaceflight development efforts.”
This funding primarily comes from NASA’s third CLD contract with Northrop Grumman. Northrop announced in October that rather than pursuing its own space station going forward, it would work with Voyager Space on Starlab, including offering a version of Cygnus to transport cargo to Starlab.
As part of that partnership, Northrop withdrew from the NASA CLD contract. The agency announced in October that it planned to reallocate the unspent $89 million of Northrop’s $125.6 million award to other CLD providers. NASA said in a Jan. 5 announcement that the unspent funds, combined with “other program funds,” amounted to $99.5 million in additions to the Blue Origin and Voyager space contracts.
NASA is also in talks with Axiom Space, which has a separate contract with NASA to access docking ports on the ISS for commercial modules that will form the basis of a future standalone commercial space station. NASA said it is negotiating with Axiom for “additional content” to its contract, but the details are still being finalized.
The agreements with Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Voyager Space are all part of the commercial spacecraft that NASA hopes to begin operating by the end of the decade to support the transition from the ISS, which is scheduled to be retired in 2030. It’s part of NASA’s strategy to support the station’s development. NASA would then become a customer of those commercial stations, along with other space agencies and companies.
“The agency will continue to work with industry with the goal of installing one or more stations in orbit to ensure competition, reduce costs, and meet the demands of NASA and other customers. ,” said Angela Hart, CLD program manager at NASA Johnson Space. Ms. Senter said in her statement.
However, there are still concerns about whether companies will be able to develop a commercial space station by the end of the 2010s. At the Nov. 20 NASA Advisory Board meeting, McAllister said that if a commercial station is not ready by the end of the decade and the ISS is not extended, there will be a short-term gap between the ISS and a commercial station. acknowledged the possibility of this occurring.
“If there is a gap, it won’t be large,” he said at the meeting, “but I also don’t think it will be irreversible, especially if it’s for a relatively short period of time.”
Hart said at the same meeting that it was difficult to estimate at this point the probability that at least one commercial broadcaster would arrive in time. NASA will get a better idea of these companies’ ability to meet their schedules until NASA certifies the stations for use by NASA astronauts and issues what is called a Phase 2 contract to purchase services in 2026. There is a possibility that it cannot be done.
“I think the first six months to a year after the deal is signed is when you can best understand our schedule,” she said.