On an exciting panel at last week’s International Space Station (ISS) Research & Development conference, top leadership for NASA and industry discussed the ISS and what will come next. The discussion took place between Sam Scimemi, Director of the ISS, NASA; Mark Mulqueen, Program Manager for the ISS at The Boeing Company; Robert Bigelow, the President of Bigelow Aerospace; Michael Suffredini, President of Axiom Space, LCC; and Marybeth Edeen, the Manager of the ISS Research Integration Office, NASA.
When you think of the International Space Station, it’s easy to think of the tremendous research performed in the unique microgravity environment in low Earth orbit (LEO). But it is so much more. The Director of the ISS, Sam Scimemi, emphasizes that it provides a means for international collaboration through the trust and partnership built by the ISS. Impacting domestic policy as well as international policy, the ISS gives new customers the opportunity to fly their experiments in space and creates an economy in LEO for research and discovery.
As humans move further and further away from Earth, they will be able to rely on Earth less and less. Currently in phase one of NASA’s Journey to Mars, Earth Reliant, the ISS is a testbed for developing the capabilities to become increasingly independent of our home planet and push human expansion further into the deep space environment.
Having been continually manned for the past 15 years, the platform allows us to learn about the effects of spaceflight on humans and how to keep them healthy. Scimemi also points out that while the ISS is operating, it’s important that humans are able to travel to cislunar space to ensure the continuity of human spaceflight. A truly unique facility with customers spanning academia, industry, non-profit organizations and other government agencies, the ISS simultaneously provides a platform for upcoming space businesses to demonstrate their technologies and for NASA to continue the necessary research for future deep space missions.
The president of Bigelow Aerospace, Robert Bigelow, talked about the company’s expandable module that is currently attached to the ISS known as BEAM, or the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. The incubator that is the ISS provides a one-of-a-kind platform for the company and many others to demonstrate and test their technologies which will greatly contribute to the future successes of their companies. This type of habitat could be sustained in LEO and beyond once support for the ISS laboratory ends.
Bigelow is currently developing the B330, an expandable space habitat with 20 times the volume of BEAM. If it were attached to the ISS, the 330 cubic meters of the habitat would increase the volume of the ISS by thirty percent. Each B330 could be freeflying or attached to another B330.
This example of a company making use of the ISS for demonstrating and testing their technology as an important step in continuing to develop their business is not limited to a single-case scenario; others outside of NASA continue to utilize the orbiting laboratory for a wide variety of research.
The president of a new company called Axiom Space, Michael Suffredini, seeks to colonize low Earth orbit with a plan that begins at the ISS with a module. He spoke about the best way to transition to a commercial space station as being through the use of the ISS. He imagines a commercial space station that can evolve as the market grows. The ISS needs to continue doing everything that it does today, he adds.
It’s important to have platforms in LEO that supplement and replace the ISS. Why? To keep access to space affordable, says Mark Mulqueen, Program Manager for the ISS at The Boeing Company.
The International Space Station continues to be a highly-collaborative testbed for technologies that will enable both the future of low-Earth orbit and deep space exploration. Learn more about the orbiting laboratory at NASA.gov.