NASA to replace ISS with multiple private space stations by 2030: Reports

NASA has committed to replacing the International Space Station (ISS) with one or more commercial space stations by 2030, according to an audit report released by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) on Wednesday. It has been reported that the ISS will retire in 2024, however, its operations are likely to be extended till 2030. According to the report, the ISS currently costs $3 billion each year, which roughly accounts for a third of NASA’s annual human space flight budget.

NASA aims to boost LEO economy and space exploration

The International Space Station has been functional since 1998 and has supported major space exploration experiments in its 23 years of existence in the lower-Earth Orbit (LEO). Since the orbiting laboratory is nearing its retirement, NASA is finding ways to keep the LEO up and running and boost to fund more experiments that would help humans reach the Moon, Mars and beyond. Revealing the plans of the agency, the OIG report stated,

NASA’s plans for long-term, deep-space human exploration missions depend on continuous access to a research laboratory in low Earth orbit. In fact, the Artemis mission, aimed at returning humans to the Moon and ultimately landing astronauts on Mars, is not feasible without continued human health research and technology demonstrations being conducted on the ISS and its eventual replacement. 

Moreover, it added that research and testing will be needed in the microgravity environment if humans want to maintain their presence in space. The 41-page report also justified the need for having a commercial space station in LEO saying that the experiments currently being performed aboard the ISS are not enough to take humans to the Moon and Mars by 2030. Several experiments regarding the assessment of human health in microgravity and new technologies are being conducted by ISS astronauts, however, their application won't be effective by the retirement period of the two-decades-old space station. 

The report highlighted that the decommissioning of the ISS and an absence of a backup space station would create a "substantial gap", and would result in the delay of deep space human exploration missions. 

Currently, many private players have already stepped in to build their own commercial space destinations by the end of this decade. Among these players are companies like Blue Origin and Sierra Space who have partnered with several other big companies to introduce their 'Orbital Reef' space station between 2025-2030. In addition to this, private space companies Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin also announced their collaboration in October for a commercial space station named 'Starlab' which is likely to be launched by 2027.

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