"The first and foremost indicator is that we have commercial LEO destinations to transition to," Gatens said. The agency currently owes Congress an updated report on plans for the transition, as committee members noted Gatens said that report should be ready for legislators "in the coming weeks."Īs part of the plan, she said, NASA has outlined a series of so-called transition indicators to guide the agency's handover of U.S. Gatens teased continuing work on NASA's plan for transitioning from the International Space Station to smaller, privately operated orbital outposts that NASA astronauts can visit to conduct research in microgravity. If NASA can foster commercial outposts in orbit and then pay to conduct research there instead, the agency could save more than $1 billion each year, Gatens said preliminary estimates show. Orbit provides a lower-risk environment for the agency to test technologies and procedures for crewed missions to more distant destinations and to evaluate health risks astronauts on such missions might face.īut the space station carries a hefty price tag: $3 billion or $4 billion each year. NASA has long held that reliable access to low Earth orbit is vital for agency operations, regardless of how long the International Space Station itself lasts. ![]() commercially provided destinations in low Earth orbit." An American presence in low Earth orbit "This is why NASA is committed to an orderly transition from ISS operations in LEO to U.S. "We cannot have a gap in American human spaceflight in low Earth orbit," she emphasized. (Construction of the station began in 1998.) Others fear that relying on commercially operated orbital stations will leave NASA stranded on Earth - a particularly grim prospect just a year after NASA regained direct access to the orbiting laboratory in 2020 via SpaceX's commercial Dragon ships after nearly a decade of hitching Soyuz rides from Russia. ![]() space agency's AdministratorBill Nelson has endorsed keeping the station operational until 2030.īut some worry that pushing the lab so far beyond its design lifetime is courting disaster, particularly as a string of incidents have shown the facility's wizened age. NASA has long argued that the facility is safe to occupy until at least 2028 and the U.S. ![]() The International Space Station partners are currently committed to operating the orbiting laboratory until 2024. Questions of how long the station - already over 20 years old - can last and how international and industry partnerships might drive activity in low Earth orbit (LEO) filled a two-hour hearing held by the House Science, Space and Technology's subcommittee on space and aeronautics on Tuesday (Sept.
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