Sean Duffy, transportation secretary and interim
NASA administrator

Earlier this week NASA’s interim administrator Sean Duffy issued a new directive [pdf] that fundamentally reshaped the agency’s space station program in how it will fund and operate the private commercial space stations now under development.

Under the present plan, NASA had issued development contracts to three proposed commercial stations, with a major contract award expected next year to one of the four companies/consortiums that are bidding. Duffy instead wants NASA to fund all the stations in an open-ended manner.

Instead of moving forward in Phase 2 with a firm fixed price contract for [commercial station] certification and services, NASA will continue to support U.S industry’s design and demonstration of [commercial stations] with multiple funded SAAs [Space Act Agreements] for the next phase. NASA will shift the formal design acceptance and certification planning acceptance from this SAA phase to a follow-on certification phase.

Utilizing SAAs for the next phase better aligns with enabling development of US industry platforms. It provides greater resources for industry to align schedule with NASA’s needs. SAAs also provide more flexibility to deal with possible variations in funding levels without the need of potentially protracted and inefficient contract renegotiations.

SAAs are generally fixed price, but the structure Duffy is establishing appears to allow NASA to supplement these contracts endlessly, making them a kind of hybrid cost-plus deal. It also aims at supporting “a minimum of two, preferably three or more” of the private stations under development.

Duffy’s shift to SAAs will also give the private stations more design and operational freedom, as SAAs shift responsibility and ownership to the company, not NASA. The arrangement will also likely require a larger investment by the companies, though this is not clear in Duffy’s directive.

Duffy also made a major change in NASA’s overall station goals by abandoning the goal of maintaining the continuous human presence in space that began when the first crew on ISS arrived on November 2, 2000. Instead, “The minimum capability required will be for [four-person] crew for 1-month increments.”

Overall this change could be very good for America’s space industry, as it opens up competition. NASA will be buying services from multiple commercial stations, all competing for business. The only caveat might be the taxpayer cost. Providing funding to all the proposed stations will either spread the money too thin, or require much a greater budget commitment by NASA that the government right now really can’t afford.

Ideally, the private stations should work hard to get customers and funding outside NASA. Duffy’s directive specifically encourages this, allowing the companies to make agreements with “international space agencies.”

As I said, however, this plan carries the risk that it will require much more funding than Congress has so far appropriated for station development. Unless NASA aggressively demands the stations find outside revenue, we could instead end up with a giant taxpayer bill that will still be insufficient to build anything.

Overall, however, this plan matches well with my own proposal that NASA do whatever it can to encourage a robust, competitive space industry in low Earth orbit. Duffy might still be pushing publicly and foolishly to beat China to the Moon, using SLS and Orion, but this new focus on developing multiple American commercial space stations will pay off much more successfully in the long run for the nation. It will give the United States an array of space-based capabilities that will quickly make the manned exploration and colonization of the solar system possible.

The American space stations under development

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:

• Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for an estimated 30 days total. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
• Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched four tourist flights to ISS, with the fourth carrying government passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland. Though there have been rumors it has cash flow issues, development of its first module has been proceeding more or less as planned.
• Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman, with an extensive partnership agreements with the European Space Agency and others. It recently had its station design approved by NASA, but it has built nothing. The company however has now raised $383 million in a public stock offering, which in addition to the $217.5 million provided by NASA gives it the capital to begin some construction.
• Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Overall, Blue Origin has built almost nothing, while Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building its module for launch.