Officially given budget approval by then- U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the International Space Station (ISS) remains one of humanity’s most impressive - and expensive – achievements more than 40 years later.

While the funding was approved in the 80s, the initial assembly of the ISS would not officially happen until the years between 1995 and 1998, when its disparate components would begin being assembled in space. The first crew would arrive on the ISS in November of 2000.

In the following decades after crew arrived, the ISS would be continuously improved and upgraded through the efforts of the organizations that helped construct it, including NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Russian State Space Corporation. But even with the addition of new modules and continued repairs and upgrades, the ISS is rapidly reaching its end of life.

As Brad Henderson, the Chief Commercial Officer of Starlab Space explained, “…what [NASA] is seeing is that the ISS is hard to keep in orbit. It’s really expensive. The technology is dated. It’s time to retire this.”

However, the ISS still serves an important mission. It’s the only existing location where scientific experiments and research can be conducted in the microgravity environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Retiring and deorbiting the ISS doesn’t take the need for that environment away. This is why NASA is exploring new alternatives to the ISS and looking to its commercial partners for help.

Commercial Space Stations on the Horizon

NASA has big plans for the coming 30-50 years. These plans have the agency shifting its focus well beyond the Moon and shooting longing glances toward the surface of Mars. These big plans will be expensive, and dollars not directed toward replacing the ISS in LEO can, instead, be used for the next big mission.

“NASA is realizing that the LEO market is at a point where they can pay for services on a commercial station for a smaller set of resources,” said Henderson. “They would then be able to use their remaining budget for the next steps that are coming 30 to 50 years down the road.”

Since identifying its next steps and its future need for commercial alternatives, NASA has seen numerous companies step up and begin developing commercial space stations. This includes companies like Axiom Space, which is planning to attach new modules to the ISS before eventually separating them to serve as a standalone space station following the ISS deorbiting. Another is Henderson’s Starlab Space, which is a joint venture involving Voyager Space, Airbus, Mitsubishi Corporation, MDA Space, and other strategic partners, like Palantir, looking to design and launch its own commercial space station in LEO.

These organizations are vying to fill the need of global governments for microgravity research, but also see other economic opportunities for their space stations – including from private companies looking to conduct microgravity research of their own to enable innovative approaches to manufacturing and material fabrication.

“Most commercial space stations have a business model that will rely on a broad mix of customers and activities,” said Tere Riley, the Director of Marketing and Communications at Redwire, which is providing technologies for numerous commercial space stations in development. “Hosting private and professional astronauts from the U.S. and other countries, and hosting equipment for research and manufacturing are expected to be among the main uses. Research and manufacturing customers will continue to be a mix of industry, academia, and federal agencies.”

As Matt Ondler, President of Axiom Space, explained, “Microgravity represents this enormous natural resource, and we think there are things we can do there that lead to medical breakthroughs, material breakthroughs, and lead to a better world for everyone.”

But it’s not just about finding new ways to create or manufacture new products and solutions. There are other challenges that we face on Earth that could be solved with a simple relocation to space. For example, in-orbit data centers could provide data storage and compute resources more efficiently than their terrestrial counterparts.

“Space provides an abundance of solar power and an infinite ‘heat sink’ to passively radiate waste heat,” said Jason Aspiotis, the Global Director of In-Space Data and Security at Axiom Space. “In the longer-term, orbital data centers (ODCs) will…present an alternative solution to energy-consuming terrestrial data centers.”

Ultimately, by moving away from government-developed and operated space stations, NASA and other global governments are doing more than saving themselves budget dollars. The introduction of commercial space stations will open the door to increased access to LEO and microgravity environments, effectively democratizing access to LEO for private companies and individuals.

But are these commercial companies truly capable of building, launching, and operating a space station? What new technologies are making this possible and economically feasible?

AI, Commercial Launch, and Other Enabling Technologies

Among the many disparate technological advancements that are making commercial space stations possible, few have had as large of an impact as the emergence of new, affordable commercial space launch capabilities. As Henderson explained, “Launch cost, launch complexity, launch cadence, and return capabilities - these advancements create options for getting people, crew, and cargo to the space station, itself.”

But while more cost-effective and frequent commercial space launch options will make it easier to get to the space station, they can’t solve a larger economic problem – the incredible cost of operating a space station. Thankfully, that’s one area where advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies could play a role.

“How do we optimize our operations? That is really important to the transition – increasing the efficiency to drive down costs. How do we optimize our operations, crew schedules, and logistics streams?” Henderson asked. “Use the technology of today. The AI. The edge computing. Use the different tools that are available to find efficiencies.”

Finally, there’s the question of connectivity. Much like Earth Observation (EO) satellites in LEO, there are limitations to the amount of data a LEO space station can transmit to the ground and when transmission can occur, which impacts its relay capabilities.

With scientific research one of the main use cases for commercial space stations, finding an effective way to relay data in orbit to more quickly and efficiently transmit it back to Earth is essential, particularly since the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) constellation that is available to NASA will not be available to these commercial space stations. Thankfully, there are numerous commercial relay systems leveraging both radio frequency (RF) and optical communications in development that could function to relay data between satellites, expediting its transmission to the ground.

“Many of these companies developing commercial space stations are looking at how to leverage satellite constellations at LEO, MEO, and GEO for data relays,” said Henderson. “They need to be able to get into the network and get data down to Earth to enable everything from video streaming, to scientific data from the payloads, to mission data, to control data for the space station’s disparate components.”

The ability of satellites in orbit to communicate and relay data will also increase the resiliency and redundancy of communications networks for these commercial space stations. As Aspiotis explained, “An ‘Outernet’ is being developed in Earth’s orbit consisting of a web of interconnected government and commercial satellites that can reroute data if one path fails, making the network more reliable and scalable.”

Ultimately, these advancements in affordable commercial space launch, advanced AI solutions, and cutting-edge data relay services combine with many other advancements in life-support systems and other innovative technologies to open the door to a new era in space – the commercial space station era. This new era will be one of increased access to orbit – democratizing scientific research and advancement in microgravity, enabling space tourism, and making space a possible location for data centers and other critical infrastructure.

And this could all be happening sooner than many would think. While the launch of operational, commercial space stations may seem like science fiction set hundreds of years in the future, NASA is hoping to have commercial space stations operational by 2029. This would give the agency time to identify and acquire commercial services prior to deorbiting the ISS, which is currently planned for 2031.

As the NASA ISS Transition Plan states, “NASA has committed to fully use and safely operate the space station through 2030, as the agency also works to enable and seamlessly transition to commercially owned and operated platforms in low Earth orbit. This will allow NASA to buy the services it needs from commercial companies for microgravity research and technology demonstrations while the agency explores the Moon and Mars.”

“Having a solid transition for the ISS is important to our national security. Private space stations will be important to federal agencies – NASA specifically - for leading-edge technology development,” said Riley. “The agency likely will use commercial space stations to learn how to live and work in space for long durations in preparation for deep space missions.”

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