Tag: Commercial Space Stations

Space News for March 2022: Plans being Finalized for the End of the International Space Station and what will come Thereafter.      

The International Space Station (ISS) has been the mainstay of manned space flight now for more than twenty years but the venerable space base is currently beginning to show its age. Occasional air leaks are becoming more and more of problem while the power system is in need of constant repair; even the smell of the station is becoming a problem. Think about how your house would smell if you couldn’t open a window for twenty years to let in some fresh air!

According to Astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent more than a year aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the place smells just like a jail. That’s easy to understand after twenty years of human habitation without any thing like real fresh air. (Credit: Daily Mail)

More than that NASA, the American space agency, simply wants out of the business of running a station in Low Earth Orbit, preferring instead to get back to their task of exploring the solar system. Current plans are for NASA to continue to support ISS operations through the year 2030, but like any bureaucratic organization NASA has already started the process of figuring out exactly how to terminate the ISS and what will take its place.

When Skylab fell out of orbit it was an an uncontrolled reentry. Pieces of America’s first space station fell on Australia and although no one was hurt it was a real danger! NASA intends to make certain that the same thing doesn’t happen with the ISS. (Credit: NASA)

As I have mentioned in several previous posts, see posts of 29 December 2021 and 2 October 2021, NASA intends to rent space for its astronauts on future commercial space stations. Indeed the space agency is helping to fund the design phase for such a commercial space station at three aerospace corporations, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman along with a consortium named Nanoracks that includes Lockheed Martin and Voyager Space. Once one of the designs from these corporations is chosen NASA will help fund the construction of the station, becoming the primary tenant.

Preliminary concept design for Northrup Grumman’s space station. Notice the attached Space X Dragon capsule center below and Northrup’s own unmanned cargo vessel Cygnus right above it. (Credit: Northrup Grumman)

Once that commercial station is up and operating the question then becomes what to do about the ISS, the largest and most massive structure ever placed into orbit. Since the ISS was built in pieces, one module at a time, should it be taken apart and de-orbited piece by piece? Or should it all be brought down in one piece?

Exploded view of the major components of the ISS. Since the station was built in pieces should it be brought down from orbit in pieces or in one big piece? (Credit: European Space Agency)

NASA has decided on the latter scenario with a plan to bring the station into a lower orbit slowly before using a large retro-burn to begin a re-entry designed to finally drop the whole thing into the southern Pacific Ocean. The ISS will meet it demise at a location in the ocean furthest from land called Point Nemo approximately midway between New Zealand and South America. Most of the ISS will probably burn up as it descends through the atmosphere but because it is so large undoubtedly more than a few big pieces will survive so NASA will take care to keep the falling debris as far from human habitations as possible.

Point Nemo is the name that has been given to a position in the south Pacific that is farthest from any inhabited land. (Credit: The Sun)

Now NASA will not be the only tenant in any new space station because the business of space tourism is definitely heating up. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who funded last year’s first ever totally commercial space mission has now arranged a series of four space missions with Space X beginning with another Dragon capsule mission, perhaps as early as the end of 2022. That first mission in what Isaacman is calling the Polaris Program will last five days and take the Dragon capsule to a much higher orbit while also including the first Extravehicular Activity (EVA) for a commercial space mission.

Having funded the first all tourist space Mission Billionaire Jared Isaacman is now partnering with Space X for a series of manned mission termed the Polaris Project. (Credit: CNBC)

Details of the later three missions are sketchy at present but Isaacman hopes that the final Polaris mission will be the first manned launch of Space X’s massive Starship rocket. Funding for the Polaris Program will come from a combination of Isaacman and Space X itself and the stated goal of the missions is “…to advance long-duration spaceflight capabilities and guiding us toward the ultimate goal of facilitating Mars exploration.” According to Isaacman.

Space X is busy preparing for the first orbital test launch of their Starship rocket. (Credit: San Antonio Express)

There are a few other items of interest that I’d like to cover quickly. The schedule for NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, the first, unmanned launch of the big Space Launch System (SLS) has been pushed back once again. After years of delays and cost overruns the first launch of the SLS had originally been scheduled for late last year, only to be pushed back to the first quarter of this year. Now NASA is admitting that more time is required to complete a long list of safety checks before launch so the Artemis 1 mission is now being tentatively scheduled for sometime in the spring. Another couple of months delay in a program that is years late may seem like just a drop in the bucket but the question remains, will the SLS ever fly?

The first test vehicle of the massive Space Launch System (SLS) has been assembled in the Vehicle assembly Building at Cape Kennedy. Testing however has bee slow and the rocket is now scheduled to roll out to the launch pad before late March 2022. (Credit: Spaceflight Insider)

Mars exploration, at least robotic exploration is proceeding however. The Ingenuity helicopter, which after completing its five ‘test flights’ has since then been working as an airborne scout for the Perseverance rover. For the past several months though dust storms on the Red Planet have kept Ingenuity grounded. At the beginning of February however the skies began to clear and on February the 8th the little aircraft took off once more on a 100 second flight, its 19th flight on Mars. Not bad for a technology demonstration vehicle that was only supposed to fly five times.

It keeps going and going. An artist’s impression of the Ingenuity helicopter with the Perseverance rover in the background. After 19 flights that little aircraft shows no sign of slowing down. (Credit: SciTechDaily)

And speaking of Mars, the Perseverance Rover has been collecting rocks that NASA hopes will one day be transferred to a planned Mars Sample Return Mission, a lander on the Red Planet that will contain a rocket capable of lifting those Mars rocks off of the planet’s surface. That rocket has been given the name of the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and the current plan is for it to rendezvous in Mars orbit with the European Space Agency’s Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) spacecraft. The ERO will acquire the samples of Martian soil from the MAV and bring them back to Earth.

NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin for a rocket to take off from the Martian surface with soil samples. The rocket will then rendezvous in Mars orbit with a European spacecraft to bring the sample back to Earth. (Credit: NASA Mars Exploration Program)

Now the contract for the Mars Ascent Vehicle has been awarded to Lockheed Martin for a potential value of $194 million dollars. The contract is slated to run for about six years and Lockheed Martin will provide several test units in addition to the actual flight vehicle. It is hoped that the Mars sample return mission will take place in the late 2020s with the actual return of the samples by 2031.

Basic Outline of the Mars Sample Return Mission. The Perseverance rover is already collecting samples that could be collected by the transfer rover shown above and brought back to Earth. If all goes according to plan we could have pieces of Mars being studied in our labouratories within the next ten years. (Credit: Nature)

Manned and unmanned there’s progress being made in man’s efforts to explore and settle our solar system.

Space News for December 2021: More news about Space Stations and Astronomers get a new orbiting X-ray Telescope.

Space tourism is back in the news as Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and CEO of the e-commerce site Zozotown, has traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Accompanying Maezawa was his own personal assistant and videographer Yozo Hirano who will film his boss’s activities during their 12-day stay in orbit. Unlike the Inspiration 4 tourist flight back in September, Maezawa’s mission also included the veteran Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin as pilot.

Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa (r) with his personal cameraman Yozo Hirano (l) and Russian Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin (c) before takeoff to the ISS. (Credit: PCMag)

Maezawa’s visit to the ISS with his assistant makes eight non-professional, paying customers who have traveled into orbit this year, in addition to the four Inspiration 4 crewmembers there were also the Russian actress and her cameraman / producer back in October. That equals the total number of tourists who had ever flow into orbit before 2021 and is 40% of all the people who went into orbit this year. No matter how you look at it space tourism is now a significant portion of the space industry.

Russian Actress Yulia Peresild spent nearly two weeks aboard the ISS shooting scenes for the first feature film to be shot, partially in orbit! (Credit: CBS News)

Another sign of the growing importance of tourism and just general commercialization in space are the ongoing plans for future commercial space stations. NASA has made it clear that the space agency wants out of the business of running a space station in Low Earth Orbit. In order to move forward on the Artemis program going back to the Moon while maintaining a presence in LOE NASA has decided to help build a commercial space station that it could then rent space on.

Right now the fate of the ISS is very much up in the air. Scheduled to remain in orbit until about 2030 there is talk of sections being used for a new station or the whole thing might be brought down from orbit. (Credit: ESA)

To help finance this effort NASA has provided a combined $416 million dollars to three aerospace firms, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origins and Nanoracks corporations to fund the design phase of their space station efforts. The plan is for the space agency to choose one of the designs in 2025 and then help finance the construction of that commercial space station. NASA would then become one of the tenants of that station while other nations or corporations; even tourists could also be tenants. By the way NASA’s choosing one of the three designs doesn’t mean that the two rejected ones won’t get built. If the commercial space industry really takes off in the next half dozen years there may very well be a need for multiple space stations in LOE.

Illustration of Northrop Grumman’s plan for a commercial space station. NASA is helping to fund the design of this station and would be one of the tenants once the station is built. (Credit: Northrop Grumman Newsroom)

The current schedule is for the ISS continue to provide a home in LOE for astronauts until 2030 while the first modules of any new commercial space station would be launched in 2028 or 29. Nevertheless with China now building its own space station in orbit and the push for a commercial station it won’t be long before things start getting a mite crowded up there.

Blue Origin’s design for a station is called the Orbital Reef. It certainly is fancier than Northrop Grumman’s but in space that’s not always a good thing. (Credit: Spaceflight Now)

Of course LOE isn’t only occupied by space stations, in fact there are thousands of unmanned satellites circling our globe right now, many of them are commercial in nature, like communication satellites. Then there are the satellites designed to look back at the Earth, to study it from a height. These include both weather satellites and landsats.

Then there are the space telescopes designed to study the rest of the universe from outside the limiting effects of Earth’s atmosphere. The most famous of these space telescopes is of course the Hubble space telescope, which has revolutionized astronomy in the years since it was launched. But there are others like the Kepler planet hunting telescope or the Chandra X-ray telescope.

Perhaps the most famous satellite since Sputnik, the Hubble telescope has revolutionized our view of the Universe. (Credit: Business Insider)

On the 8th of December a new X-ray telescope was launched into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. At a cost of $188 million dollars the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE telescope may not be as newsworthy as the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch on the 25nd of December. Nevertheless in its own way IXPE will have many opportunities to add to our knowledge of such high-energy astrophysical objects as black holes, pulsars and magnetars.

The Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE Space Telescope will peer deeply into the heart of astronomical objects such as black holes and pulsars. (Credit: Semantic Scholar)
Launched aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket the IXPE telescope took off from Kennedy Space Center on December 8th. (Credit: NASAspaceflight.com)

You see the difference between IXPE and the Chandra X-ray telescope is that IXPE measures the polarization of the X-rays it detects. All light, whether visible or X-rays or radio waves have an amplitude that can either go up and down or side to side as the wave travels through space. This is the polarization of the light, either vertical, up and down, or horizontal, side to side.

Most of the light in the Universe is unpolarized, that is made of of many different polarizations. Certain materials only allow a distinct polarization to pass through. This allows scientists to study the conditions under which the light is generated. (Credit: ScienceFacts.net)

In most cases, say the light from the Sun, there is a random mixture of polarizations. Calculations in both quantum electrodynamics and general relativity however tell us that in certain very intense regions, strong magnetic or gravitational fields, the X-rays that are generated should be polarized in certain ways. Therefore by measuring the polarization of the X-rays coming from just outside a black hole’s event horizon, or from the surface of a pulsar IXPE will be able to give astronomers new details about the conditions there.

The first ever image of a black hole. The IXPE telescope will look at the light coming from just outside the event horizon of black holes hopefully revealing some of their secrets. (Credit: NASA)

Every time astronomers look at the Universe in a new way they’ve discovered new details that profoundly changed our knowledge. One can only hope that IXPE, and James Webb when it finally begins operation, will revolutionize astronomy the way that Hubble and Chandra and Kepler already have.’

Launch of the James Webb Space Telescope of Christmas day. Although the launch went perfectly the JWST still has more than a month of travel and several complicated, and critical instrument deployments to carry out before it can be called a complete success. (Credit: Science)

And hopefully astronomers will soon have an even more powerful tools for learning about the Universe as on Christmas day at 1220 GMT the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was successfully launched from French Guyana aboard an Arian 5 rocket. Now I just said that the launch was successful but the JWST still has a lot of complicated maneuvers to complete before it can begin its work of discovery. I intend to discuss the JWST at length in a post in another month or two so, for the moment I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the telescope’s deployment continues to be a success. 

Space New for May 2021: The Russian Space Agency has announced its intention to end its participation with the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025. What does that portend for the future of the ISS?

Last month, on the 15th of April the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov announced on Russian television that his nation would be terminating its commitment to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the announcement the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos would be informing their partners, that is the US, European and Japanese space agencies, that it would cease to provide crew, maintenance and support for the ISS at the end of the year 2024.

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Yuri Borisov announced his government’s intention to end their participation in the International Space Station. (Credit: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation)

Now in many ways the Russian intention makes a good deal of sense. The original design of the ISS was for a twenty-year lifespan, which was completed in 2020. Currently the ISS is working on a five-year extension agreed to by all of the partners. However air leaks and other maintenance issues have multiplied over the last few years and everybody involved with the ISS recognizes that the station will require a major overhaul if it is to continue beyond 2025.

The International Space Station (ISS) is now more than 20 years old. Before long a major overhaul will be needed if the station is to continue to operate. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Besides the ISS was never the space station that Russia really wanted. You see the orbit of the ISS is such that it travels as far north as a latitude of 51 degrees, and 51 degrees south by the way. That means that while the ISS passes over all of the continental US it passes over less than 20% of the Russian Federation. That makes it all but useless to for Earth observation and monitoring of much of Russia’s territory particularly the Arctic region that Russian’s President Vladimir Putin considers vital to his country’s future. 

The path of the ISS in orbit takes it over all of the US except Alaska but over very little of Russia. The Russian’s would like a space station that can observe their own country. (Credit: Quora)

For that reason over the last several years Roscosmos has been designing a new space station that will go into a polar orbit, enabling it to observe and study the entire planet. The question is can Russia afford such an undertaking? The Russian economy is not strong and over the last decade much of Roscosmos’ budget for the ISS has come from taxiing the astronauts of other nations to the ISS. With Space X now launching astronauts to the ISS at half the cost the Russian space agency has lost that revenue stream.

Initial design for a Russian space station to be placed in a polar orbit. While not as large as the ISS it would still cost a great deal. Can Russia afford it? (Credit: Russian Space Web)

In my own opinion the Russian decision was also determined as much by politics as science. Tensions between Russian the other nations involved with the ISS have continued to increase ever since it annexed the Crimea, supported rebels in Ukraine and interfered in the elections of other nations. The Russian government’s decision to abandon the ISS may just be a thumbing of their nose at nations who are better off than they are.

Having seized Crimea Russia is now supporting pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. Does this have more to do with Russia’s decision about the ISS than science? (Credit: The Irish Sun)

Nevertheless, if Russia does end its involvement with the ISS what then will be the future of the space station? The truth is that NASA would also like to considerably reduce its own commitment to the upkeep and management of the ISS. So what is going to happen to the ISS, will it be pulled out of orbit to burn up in the atmosphere like Skylab and Russia’s MIR space stations were?

America’s first space station Skylab fell out of orbit on 11July in 1979. No one was hurt when Skylab fell but the ISS is so big that it would have to be brought down carefully! (Credit: Wikipedia)

NASA hopes to avoid that possibility. The American space agency hopes to use the ISS as an asset to further the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LOE). This is all part of a long-range program that began when NASA started funding Space X and Boeing to develop their commercial manned space vehicles.

The commercialization of the ISS has already begun, the Bigelow inflatable space module has been attached to the ISS for over a year now allowing the aerospace company to gain insight on how to build their future station. (Credit: NASA)

Now NASA has tasked Axiom Space Corporation to organize and manage the first completely civilian mission to the ISS, which could occur as soon as January of next year, 2022. Axiom Mission One will take four persons, one a former NASA astronaut along with three businessmen, to the ISS aboard a Space X Dragon capsule. They will stay in orbit on the station for eight days performing experiments and bring the results home with them. Going forward NASA also plans for Axiom to attach a commercial habitation module to the ISS as early as 2024.

The crew of Axiom’s Mission One flight to the ISS scheduled for January 2022. (Credit: Twitter)

To get a idea of how this system is going to work consider Axiom to be the travel agency, who will purchase seats from Space X to take 4-6 astronauts to the ISS. And the astronauts don’t have to be rich, millionaire space tourists; the nation of Peru for example could purchase a ticket to take its first astronaut into space. Or corporations might also take advantage of this in order to send one of their employees into space to experiment with a new technology. Intel Corporation for example could experiment with manufacturing three-dimensional integrated circuits in a zero gee environment.

It’s gonna be awhile before going into space is this easy but maybe someday. Axiom Aerospace is working to become space’s first travel agency. (Credit: The Travel Team)

Eventually NASA hopes that Axiom or some similar space company will completely take over the operation and maintenance of the ISS and run in something like a modern resort. Customers would arrange their stays at the ISS through Axiom who would then set up their flight with Space X or some other commercial launch company. NASA’s Cape Kennedy would then become something like a municipal airport, owned by the government but renting space to commercial carriers. In time this commercialization would extend to other space stations like the one planned by Bigelow Aerospace.

Bigelow Aerospace Corp.’s concept for a commercial space station. (Credit: Business Insider)

And speaking of space stations its time to mention that back on April 28th China successfully placed into orbit the core module of their first space station called Tianhe. Most of the press coverage of this launch focused on the fact that the lunch vehicle for the module, a Long March 5B rocket, was left by the Chinese in an unstable orbit and could have re-entered the atmosphere over inhabited areas of the Earth. As it was the rocket eventually fell into the Indian Ocean doing no harm to anyone.

China has just begun the construction of their space station to be called Tianhe. I’ve alreadt seen it passing over Philadelphia. (Credit: New Scientist)

Over the next year or so Tianhe will be joined by two other modules, named Wentian and Mengtian to form a ‘T’ shaped station. The first crew to man the station is scheduled to be launched this September for a 6-month mission. When completed the Tianhe station’s planned lifespan is ten years but could be extended to 15.

And I’ve already seen the Tianhe station as it flew over Philadelphia, three times now in fact! And the first time I saw it the ISS was also flying overhead so the two were visible at the same time for about two minutes. That was quite cool.

Image from China’s Zhurong Mars rover looking back at its landing vehicle. (Credit: Al Jazeera)

And before I go I have to mention China’s other success in space, the landing on Mars of their Tianwen-1 lander, which carries a small rover named Zhurong. The lander module separated from the Tianwen-1 orbiter and successfully touched down on the Martian surface on the 15th of May. Landing in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars the rover was deployed and is now rolling around the Martian surface. The plan is for Zhurong to explore the area around its lander for 90 days, however considering how NASA’s rovers, and now helicopter, have all had their mission’s extended I shouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese rover doesn’t last a good deal longer than 90 days.