NASA awards contracts to three private space station projects
Capitalism in space: NASA today announced development contract awards to three different private space station projects.
- Nanoracks Starlab concept won $160 million. Partners include Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin.
- Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef project was awarded $130 million, partnering with Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire.
- Northrop Grumman won $125.6 million on a concept based on upgrades to its Cygnus freighter.
All three contracts are Space Act agreements, designed by NASA to jumpstart the companies and their design efforts. All three are in addition to the effort by Axiom to build its own ISS modules that will eventually detach to form its own independent station.
That’s four private American space stations now in the works. All are aiming to launch before this decade is out.
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Capitalism in space: NASA today announced development contract awards to three different private space station projects.
- Nanoracks Starlab concept won $160 million. Partners include Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin.
- Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef project was awarded $130 million, partnering with Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire.
- Northrop Grumman won $125.6 million on a concept based on upgrades to its Cygnus freighter.
All three contracts are Space Act agreements, designed by NASA to jumpstart the companies and their design efforts. All three are in addition to the effort by Axiom to build its own ISS modules that will eventually detach to form its own independent station.
That’s four private American space stations now in the works. All are aiming to launch before this decade is out.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Watching the Nanoracks/Voyager/LM Starlab presentation, I thought it was a trailer for a movie!
Interesting that Northrop Grumman had the lowest bid, but looked like it had the most to offer. Like it is stated, they already have the Cygnus freighter and looks like they are using another HALO just like the one they are developing for Gateway. No mention of it in the description but it was on their graphic – a manned Dragon docked to the station’s nadir port.
None of these have artificial gravity. If we are going to colonize the moon, mars, ceres, and the moons of Jupiter we need to know if humans can survive and reproduce at those gravity levels. Otherwise just forget about all that and go full O’Neil style rotating space habitats.
David,
It is my impression that micro-grav is the point for the research and manufacturing they are considering.
There is nothing in the NASA reqs for CLD that require it at this point.
And no one else that has a stake in it has expressed a need or desire for s spinner yet either.
In my own humble opinion, the first spinning station will probably be an LEO hotel for tourists.
The Gateway Foundation, which as far as I can tell isn’t actually doing much, has a good concept for a rotating station.
Right now, we don’t need gravity in space – we have plenty of it on Earth. We need the micro-gravity environment to do novel things that cannot be done on the ground.
Medium term, I entirely agree.
David K,
You wrote: “None of these have artificial gravity. If we are going to colonize the moon, mars, ceres, and the moons of Jupiter we need to know if humans can survive and reproduce at those gravity levels.”
You may be expecting too much from the first attempt by commercial companies. Let them learn the basics before they go for the more complicated designs.
I agree that having these various gravity levels can be very useful and educational, but it looks like we are going to do the same as we had planned to do in the 1960s, learn how to live in lunar gravity by making a lunar base. SpaceX is planning to do the same on Mars.
“There is nothing in the NASA reqs for CLD that require it at this point.”
Bingo.
These station proposals are merely designing for what their market is demanding right now.
I think a variable gravity centripetal LEO station is well overdue. But someone with a pocketbook has got to want it.
How detailed are these designs? Seems awfully expensive. I assume these include some sort of mockup but I didn’t see anything in the NG press release about it.