Published on September 29, 2023
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The International Space Station (ISS) is living its final years.
Currently it is planned on the American side that it will be desorbed in January 2031. The Russians are now talking about 2024 after having envisaged 2028 (this was before the war). It must be remembered that the first elements of the Station were launched in 1998. It will therefore only have lived for thirty years. But we must also understand that designs and technologies evolve, and that after a while it is more efficient and less expensive to stop maintaining and repairing and build again.
Before starting again, we can ask ourselves the question of the usefulness of such stations.
At the Mars Society, we have always considered that the ISS had been more of an obstacle to space exploration by human flights, than a facilitator.
Robert Zubrin, founder of the association in the United States, said in 1998 when it was created: « If we want to go to Mars, let’s do it, directly ».
It is true that everything we learned to do on the station, we could have learned in spaceships, during trips to the Moon (to begin with) or on the surface of the Moon in larger habitats that in orbit in near space, using a minimum of local resources, even if only regolith to protect our astronauts from radiation, and by allowing them to benefit from a gravity, certainly weak, but less disabling than weightlessness where the ISS operates today.
The advantage would have been to be able to do something else at the same time, that is to say planetology on the Moon, and use instruments there in preparation for the exploration that we could then have done on Mars.
In any case, the decision is taken, and we will continue to build and live in stations.
We will carry out various scientific experiments using weightlessness (crystallization for example) or studying the behavior of the human body in weightlessness, until we really understand that it is absolutely necessary to restore a minimum gravity so that this body can maintain good health.
From this moment on, other stations will be built, this time rotating on itself or in conjunction with another, like those imagined in the 1970s by Gerard O’Neill (cylinders or tori). But these third generation stations will be more than places of experimentation, they will become places of life for populations who will have to do in space, or who will have chosen to work or spend their time in these wonderful places, since their environment will be controllable, rather than remaining on an impoverished and dangerous Earth.
For the moment, let’s stay where we are, that is to say at the dawn of these new second generation stations (after MIR and the ISS, the previous Russian stations, Salyut, being only preparations for MIR ).
Several countries are considering one, in addition to China which has just built and then started using its own, called Tiangong.
There is also Russia which has regained its full independence from the United States in the space domain and which is considering a separate station, called “ROSS”, to assert this. In August 2022 the Russians planned two phases for ROSS, the first between 2025 and 2030, the second before 2035. Of course such an undertaking is expensive but the Russians have the know-how and questions of cost are relative in authoritarian countries. The Indians, always present when we talk about space, also want their station. But as it is the newest and least qualified space power, we will wait and see.
The United States therefore wants to continue, and they will do so with the Starlab program. They certainly want to bring their remaining partners on board with them, that is to say the ESA, Canada and Japan. The latter do not have the financial means to go it alone, and the ESA cannot, and does not want to, since it no longer has its own launcher.
We are still waiting for proof of Ariane 6 (its launch), and this project is not a really heavy launcher, compared for example to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, and because it has always considered that manned flights were peripheral by in relation to its two main space activities: putting commercial or scientific terrestrial satellites into orbit and sending robotic scientific missions into deep space.
That said, European skills are technically interesting, unless it is politically for the United States, and they are therefore likely to continue to be used.
This was the Columbus module and the Bartolomeo loading platform built by Airbus via ESA for the ISS.
This was the ATV built by ArianeGroup again via ESA to supply the ISS with equipment or consumables (and then to serve as trash).
This was the EMS (European Module Service) still via the ESA, constituting the essential functional addition to the Orion capsule (in fact the third stage of the SLS rocket).
And this could continue within the framework of the Starlab program, since the company Voyager Space has chosen Airbus as a partner in this project launched by NASA, to produce the habitat module (replacing Lockheed Martin dismissed after the implosion of Titan above the wreck of the Titanic, because the company wanted to use an inflatable module that the CEO of Voyager Space considers by analogy to be too dangerous).
The contract has not yet been awarded. It will be in 2025 or 2026, but Voyager Space and one of the three candidates shortlisted by NASA financially and she received the largest grant to continue her study.
Other companies receiving funding from NASA are Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) and Northrop Grumman. Note that unfunded companies like Axiom, SpaceX or Vast will still be able to submit their applications, because the call for tenders remains open to them. Although less well placed, their chances are not zero, because they have skills having all three worked seriously on their own space station projects for some time now.
It is certain, however, that this situation of supplier or subcontractor does not allow for conceptual initiative on the part of the Europeans (they must make proposals to the Americans that they must consider acceptable… and prefer to others in competition ). And it is surprising/regrettable that they are content with this position. Let’s imagine that ultimately it is a competitor of Voyager Space who wins the Starlab contract.
There would then be nothing left for Europe to send into space, except the EMS module of the Artemis mission. But what would this module weigh if the Starship can fly? At this point, I would bet that neither the SLS nor its EMS being of any use anymore, NASA would revise its plans for the Artemis missions not yet committed, and would opt for the simplest solution (without transshipment), therefore for the Starship. Finally, there remains the possibility that NASA wants to keep the ESA under its control, and that it finds a way to have the latter carry out some work which will be interesting for it and will give it the impression of staying, albeit in poor conditions. , a worthy partner.
It seems that in astronautics the ESA is bogged down in insurmountable decision-making problems: members meet, we make declarations, we study, and ultimately nothing happens, because nothing is decided. The European organization demonstrates a glaring lack of audacity and desire to follow through with innovative ideas. Perhaps because it is difficult to decide when there are too many of you; that to obtain a consensus we are obliged to settle for the lowest common denominator? But surely also because in principle manned flights are still not seen as a serious activity among scientists and the leaders of the institution.
An article originally published on August 17, 2023.
2023-09-29 02:31:23
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