Washington – After 20 years of continuous occupation, the International Space Station has entered the Golden Age and is alive with activity – thanks in large part to the return of U.S. rockets through SpaceX commercial partner.
But while this image of post – Cold War cooperation is certain, NASA wants to start parting before the end of the decade, leaving a gap that the private sector and China hope to fill.
“This space station is the spaceport we wanted to be,” said Kathy Lueders, head of NASA’s human space light program at a recent press conference.
At the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 America relied on Russian Soyuz rockets for “taxi” trips to the big satellite.
SpaceX changed that last year with the success of its Dragon Crew, which is now preparing for its second regular flight, and third overall, in April.
“Our recent agreements with American private industry have allowed us to bring more people into space, more people to the International Space Station,” said Joel Montalbano, ISS program manager at NASA.
Because the spacecraft can carry four – compared to three for Soyuz – the average crew size of the space station has grown from six to seven.
So the ISS needs a new bed – with a current assembly.
SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission will explode out of Florida on April 22, and the four astronauts will engage for a few days with the Crew-1 team before that team returns from their six-month mission.
During this time, the station can accommodate a minimum of 11 people.
“We’re going to be what I think in campout mode,” said Shane Kimbrough, Crew-2 spacecraft commander.
“We’re just looking for a place to sleep on the wall somewhere or on the roof of the house, it doesn’t matter there. ”
“We are entering the Golden Age of ISS deployment,” said David Parker, human and robotic director at the European Space Agency (ESA).
Former president Ronald Reagan was the one who introduced America’s “pioneer spirit” when he instructed NASA to develop a “space station with lasting development. ”
The first parts were launched into space in 1998, and the first crew spent several months there in 2000.
The latest compression model was installed in 2011, leaving the giant 109-meter end-to-end artificial satellite, about the size of an American football field.
“For the first half of the space station’s life, most of the focus was on building it,” said Robert Pearlman, space historian and author of “Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space . ”
Now, astronauts have to work on maintenance jobs, “but most of their time is spent doing hundreds of scientific studies,” he said.
More than 3,000 experiments were performed in this microgravity laboratory, which flies at an average of 400 kilometers above the Earth, at 28,000 kph.
The future of ISS is officially certain to 2024 with the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.
“Technically, we have flown ISS to flight by the end of 2028,” NASA said in a statement. “Furthermore, our analysis did not identify any issues that would prevent us from expanding beyond 2028 if required. ”
Montalbano said it plans to start an investigation later this year for the period 2028-2032.
The use of the space station is expected to change.
NASA, which wants to part financially to focus its deep space exploration with its Moon to Mars missions, announced that in 2019 it would welcome paying tourists on board the ISS to help balance costs.
They stop by SpaceX or Boeing – their own taxi program, Starliner, is at the end of the schedule.
“My hope is that we will be flying the first private astronaut mission in 2022,” Montalbano said.
Competitors are also on the horizon.
Private company Axiom Space wants to build the world’s first commercial space station – first by connecting its modules to the ISS, before finally connecting and starting orbit on its own.
China plans to start work on its own giant space station, Tiangong, this year and hopes to complete it by 2022.
Last week Russia and China unveiled plans for a lunar joint station, “on the surface and / or in the lunar orbit,” starting a new space alliance.
The move came after Moscow refused to participate in Gateway, NASA’s proposed lunar station.
That could be a fitting symbol of the end of the US-Russia long-distance partnership when the last ISS is shut down and crashed into an ocean.
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