The First Free-Flying Commercial Space Station: Nanoracks' Starlab

Thursday - September 21 2023, 17:27 UTC - 1 year ago

Nanoracks has announced its plans to build the world’s first free-flying commercial space station called Starlab in collaboration with Lockheed Martin and with funding from NASA. Starlab will be better able to avoid space debris and Hilton is partnering with the project to design a luxurious living space in the station. Lessons learned from the ISS will be taken into account as NASA is aiming to extend its lifespan beyond 2030 and plan for a new era of privatized space stations.

Back in 2021, Houston, Texas-based space company Nanoracks announced its plans to build the world's first free-flying commercial space station. The Starlab space station project, a collaboration with Lockheed Martin, received $160 million in funding from NASA as the space agency looks to launch a number of privately-built successors to the International Space Station (ISS). As the ISS approaches the end of its operations in the 2030s, NASA aims to innovate by spreading its orbital presence over various smaller stations. Last year, Nanoracks appointed former NASA astronaut Tim Kopra as CEO. Kopra has vast experience aboard the space station and has performed a number of spacewalks in Earth orbit. He acknowledges the challenge of succeeding the ISS while also highlighting the fact that there's room for improvement. "The ISS is an amazing space vehicle and laboratory and one of the greatest engineering feats ever accomplished," Kopra told IE in an interview. "We can learn from the 23 years of a permanent human presence on board ISS and the operations, technology, and hardware that have worked well, and what can be improved." .

The first free-flying commercial space station .

The career of Nanoracks' CEO has coincided with some of the most important moments in the history of the ISS. Having served in the U.S. Army, Kopra was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000, the same year the ISS became operational. He first flew to the orbital station in 2009 as part of the Expedition 20 crew and he returned from the station for the last time in 2009, having served as Commander for Expedition 47. During his time aboard the ISS, he racked up more than 33 hours of spacewalk time. "Working with the multiple teams on the ground and on board the ISS, and especially with the operational complexities of spacewalks, I've seen the importance and applicability of collaboration and teamwork to accomplish any task or mission," Kopra told IE. That experience places him in a great position to spearhead the development of Starlab, which was announced just before he joined Nanoracks as chief executive in 2022.

Unlike the ISS, Starlab will be a free-flying space station. In this context, free-flying means the space station will not be locked into an orbital position and it will be able to alter its trajectory based on mission requirements. This will allow it to have greater flexibility and it also means Starlab will be better able to avoid space debris — a growing problem that has affected the ISS in recent years. Another area of innovation for Starlab will be comfort, as Hilton joined the project last year, announcing it will design a luxurious living space within the station.

Lessons learned from the ISS .

Launched in 1998 by NASA and Russia's Roscosmos, the ISS ushered in an unprecedented new era of global scientific cooperation in space. A quarter of a century later, tensions between the two powers mean orbital science operations are set to become fragmented like never before. Though NASA aims to extend the space station's lifespan beyond 2030, it has also been planning for a new era of privatized space stations that will demonstrators the lessons learned from the ISS.