The first long-duration crew arrived at the International Space Station in 2000. Since then, the ISS has had over 250 people visit the orbiting platform, with that number continuing to grow as more missions launch to the station.
But in 2030, NASA and its international partners plan to retire the orbiting lab. Robyn Gatens, director of the ISS and Commercial Spaceflight Division, said even though the ISS is going to deorbit, there is still a lot being accomplished before the deadline.
“We’re not done yet,” Gatens said. “We're trying to get everything we can out of the International Space Station this decade. In fact, we're in what we like to think of as the golden era, or the decade of results. Many incredible scientific and technological results [are] still coming out of station. We'll continue to do that through 2030 and after that, we're preparing to transition to commercially owned and operated space stations.”
As the transition between the ISS and commercial space stations begin, Gatens said she is hopeful that several commercial platforms will be in low-Earth orbit. As the end of the decade nears, Gatens said commercial companies are beginning to submit their station proposals to NASA.
“We are in what we are calling phase one of that process right now, where we have a number of agreements with these companies to help them in developing their concepts and providing financial assistance and expertise,” Gatens said. “Then we're getting ready to issue a request for proposals for phase two … which will be to get actual proposals from companies full and open competition.”
Gatens said while the ISS stands as an important symbol to her, the ISS and these future commercial stations fall in line with NASA’s main objectives: exploration, science and research in low-Earth orbit.
“I've worked on the International Space Station my whole career so, yes, it is bittersweet to think about one day deorbiting it, all that it has stood for and all the work … and science that has been conducted there,” Gatens said. “But I'm excited about the new platforms and all that they will have to offer, and I'm excited about continuing our work in low-Earth orbit.”
A plan for new stations
Aerospace companies are working to develop commercial space stations to replace the ISS.
One is Axiom Space, but instead of launching a station after the ISS retires, the company plans to launch several modules starting in 2027.
The modules will help transition low-Earth orbit exploration into a more habitable experience for crewed missions. The first will be attached to the ISS.
George Motter, senior vice president and chief engineer of Axiom Station, said NASA selected Axiom in 2020 as a commercial provider to attach to the ISS with modules.
“We have habitat modules. We have payload modules. We have modules that will provide storage and power and thermal rejection,” Motter said. “We’re building the infrastructure for a city in space. We want to be able to provide the ability to continue to grow the space station, start off small, and then keep growing the International Space Station.”
Recently, NASA asked Axiom to reevaluate the modular plan to help accommodate the ISS retirement plans. Motter said this would allow Axiom to start launching hardware in 2027. In addition, Motter said this plan creates a faster and easier transition when Axiom’s modules are ready to undock from the ISS and create the company’s free-flying station.
“We're going to be sending up the payloads, power and thermal modules, as our first module to the space station,” Motter said. “This allows us to have a significant capacity to provide science and the ability to save the science from the ISS or transfer payloads, scientific inquiry and scientific projects, and also any hardware that NASA doesn't need anymore.”
Motter said the advantage of modular systems is that they interconnect and have their own guidance systems. In other words, this system is adaptive and can change as needed.
“The idea here is, as we build the station, we bring up newer and newer modules,” Motter said. “We may find that there might be a module that we don't need anymore, and it can fly off and dispose of itself safely by reentry into the Pacific Ocean, into Point Nemo as they say. By doing that, we can continually regenerate Axiom station and be able to sort of make it what we need it to be, not only now but in the future.”
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