What, said Montalbano, does all this mean? In an ongoing effort to foster commercial activity in space, NASA has selected 12 companies to study the future of commercial human spaceflight in low-Earth orbit, including long-range opportunities for the International Space Station. The studies will assess the potential growth of a low-Earth orbit economy and how to best stimulate private demand for commercial human spaceflight. The portfolio of selected studies will include specific industry concepts detailing business plans and viability for habitable platforms, whether using the space station or separate free-flying structures. The studies also will provide NASA with recommendations on the role of government and evolution of the space station in the process of transitioning U.S. human spaceflight activities in low-Earth orbit to non-governmental enterprises. “When the International Space Station was established, we could not have anticipated all of the benefits it would provide,” said Sam Scimemi, director of the International Space Station division at NASA Headquarters. “We’re excited to receive this input from the commercial market and aerospace experts to help shape a future thriving space economy in which companies contract with each other to conduct research and activities in low-Earth orbit.”

A privatized ISS, Montalbano said, may be one in which companies “practice on us to get used to operating in low-Earth orbit, and then go away – meaning either that they berth or dock and then leave, or they come up with a Module 2.0 that they launch and fly autonomously.”

 

The Emerging Marketplace in Space

Of course, NASA has already fostered commercial activity in space; it spurred the first privately operated cargo deliveries to the ISS, beginning in 2012, and in August 2018, announced selection of the first group of astronauts to fly privately operated crew vehicles – the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner – to the ISS, beginning in 2019. Several companies are already operating aboard the station: NanoRacks, the first company to own and market its own hardware and services aboard the ISS, has flown more than 700 payloads, including the deployment of more than 200 microsatellites, for customers from 30 countries. Since April 2016, Bigelow Aerospace has maintained one of the modules berthed to the station, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), an inflatable pressurized module contributing to the space station habitable volume. BEAM is 10 feet in diameter by 13 feet long. Most of the U.S. segment modules are 15 feet in diameter and between 18 feet (Node 1 Unity or the U.S./Joint Airlock Quest) and 37 feet (JEM Pressurized Module) long. Russian modules are a minimum of 9 feet in diameter and 15 feet long (Pirs and Poisk), up to 12 feet in diameter by 43 feet long (Service Module Zvezda), A few modules like the Pressurized Mating Adapters (PMAs) and Cupola are a little smaller than BEAM. BEAM was also never really configured for “habitation.” It lacks some provisions like air circulation (ductwork can be brought in temporarily). It was intended as a technical test of an inflatable and can now be used for storage, with astronauts entering only temporarily.

Bigelow is one of a handful of companies, including Axiom Space, that have floated the idea of sending up their own modules to be berthed to the ISS for a short acclimation period before unberthing and operating in LEO for profit. A privatized ISS, Montalbano said, may be one in which companies “practice on us to get used to operating in low-Earth orbit, and then go away – meaning either that they berth or dock and then leave, or they come up with a Module 2.0 that they launch and fly autonomously.”

As successful as companies such as NanoRacks, SpaceX, and Axiom are, none is likely to make such a bold move until NASA’s plans for the ISS are known. “It’s costly for them to do it on their own,” said Montalbano. In the near future, NASA may become more of a facilitator than benefactor, helping guide companies through their first experiences in orbit, “and then possibly they can go off on their own for a second or third. That, to me, is another huge benefit of the space station.”

Two events, each currently scheduled for 2019, have the potential to accelerate the pace of both commercialization and research being conducted aboard the ISS: the first privately operated crew transports, by Boeing and SpaceX – each operating spacecraft that can carry four people, compared to the Soyuz spacecraft’s capacity for three – and the addition of the Russian Nauka (Multipurpose Laboratory Module). According to Montalbano, this means the crew aboard the station will grow from six to seven people, with an accompanying increase in the number of hours spent on operations and experiments.

“And the hope is that maybe the commercial industry allows other traffic to come and visit the space station,” he said. “Maybe once we get Boeing and SpaceX flying crews, that opens up opportunities in the next year-and-a-half to two years for other companies to fly people to the station.” As an example, Montalbano said, a company may want to send its own investigator to the station to perform a specific biomedical or materials experiment – or a company might just want to fly people up for a week to film some commercials. “We’re still trying to figure out all the opportunities we can generate with the commercial approach we’re trying to transition to,” said Montalbano.

 

The Long Haul: A Gateway to Deep Space Exploration

Decades ago, as NASA considered the best uses for its new space technologies, the Space Task Group formed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969 called for biomedical and psychosocial research aboard a space station that would enable long-term human space exploration, and eventually a Mars landing. Today, as the agency’s plans and capabilities for a crewed expedition to Mars become more refined, the ISS remains an important testbed for testing both the technological and human aspects of long-term spaceflight.