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Future Space Stations - What Comes After the ISS?

The International Space Station’s days are numbered. With running costs of nearly $4-billion per year (and rising) and a budget only until 2025, there is a big chance it will be brought back down to Earth in a fiery spectacle over the Pacific ocean.
LOP-G 5 photos
Photo: NASA
Bigelow space station modulesLOP-GChinese Space Station conceptChandrayaan 2 orbiter
By that time, it will have been in orbit for over 25 years. As of right now, over 220 astronauts from 17 countries have been aboard the ISS and it has played host to hundreds of scientific experiments. It’s located in lower Earth orbit, at an altitude of around 400 km (250 miles) and it completes around 15 full orbits per day - in total, it’s spun around the Earth around 118,000 times.

It’s also the single most expensive man-made object ever. The cost of all modules, plus maintenance, added up amounts to $150-billion. So if the decision is made to bring it back down to Earth, it will be the single most expensive fireworks show (or show of any kind, for that matter) ever. And it is estimated that somewhere under 20 percent of the 419,725 kg (925,335 pounds) ISS, which measures 109 meters (357 feet) in length and is 51 meters (167 feet) wide, won’t burn up on re-entry into the atmosphere.

Regardless of what its fate might end up being, there’s still plenty to look forward to in the near future for those with a penchant for the idea of people being aboard orbiting space stations for science. In fact, there are already a few projects underway, some more advanced than others, that should maintain our interest for the foreseeable future.

The Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway

LOP\-G
Photo: NASA
The Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway (sometimes called Lunar Gateway or shortened to LOP-G) is a space station planned to be launched, one piece at a time, starting sometime in the mid-2020s. The big difference here is that it would orbit around the Moon, not the Earth, at an expected altitude that will vary between 3,000 and 70,000 km (1,900 and 43,000 miles) - it would be a very elliptical orbit.

Part of its role is going to be similar to that of the ISS - to have a crew constantly present on board, although a much smaller crew than what the ISS can handle, and conduct experiments. Another part of its planned role is for it to be a stepping stone for astronauts to return to the Moon (for the first time since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission) in order to ease the process of potentially building a permanent base on its surface.

It is also envisioned as a proposed starting and endpoint for NASA’s future Deep Space Transport (DST, also known as the Mars Transit Vehicle), which is expected to take the first humans to the into of Mars’ orbit (sometime in the mid-2030s).

Chinese Large Modular Space Station

Chinese Space Station concept
Photo: CNSA
China plans to launch the first module of its proposed modular space station next year, in 2020. It will be the first part of a space station that’s slated to weigh roughly one-fifth the mass of the ISS and about the same size as the now decommissioned Russian Mir space station.

The first module the Chinese government plans to send into space will be the station’s core module, followed by two experiment modules (one in 2021 and the other in 2022). The station will orbit at roughly the same altitude as the ISS (an elliptical orbit ranging from 340 to 450 km / 210 to 280 miles) and its main stated goal will be the conduction of a wide range of experiments.

According to official information, the plan is to have scientists on board the station work on biotechnology experiments, microgravity fluid physics and combustion, material science, as well as fundamental physics in microgravity.

Indian space station

Chandrayaan 2 orbiter
Photo: ISRO
ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, has announced plans to have its own space station, although it will probably be ready sometime after the one China is building. Before it can do so, it must first prove that it can successfully send humans into orbit around the Earth.

It will first carry out two uncrewed missions, then followed by a crewed mission (three people) in 2022. This will be the first major step towards creating its own space station, but the country will have a long way to go before it achieves this goal, especially since it doesn’t really have any experience with space exploration.

ISRO will send up the three astronauts via an orbital spacecraft currently in development called Gaganyaan. The 3.7 ton module has the capability to carry a crew of three into orbit for missions of up to seven days and it would be used to deliver new crews and bring old ones back to Earth from the proposed orbital station. Not many details regarding the station itself have been made public, other than the fact that it will weigh roughly 20 tons.

Bigelow Next-Generation Commercial Space Station

Bigelow space station modules
Photo: Bigelow Aerospace
Bigelow Aerospace is a Las Vegas-based tech startup that specializes in making expandable space station modules for various space-related applications. One of its modules, called Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), essentially an inflatable chamber, is now attached to the ISS where it has been certified to be safe until 2028 (exceeding expectations).

But the company has bigger plans of its own. It wants to create what it calls the Bigelow Next-Generation Commercial Space Station, a private orbital space station that will first be sent into space around the Earth (the first module in 2021), before being moved into lunar orbit in 2022, where additional modules will be sent in order to create the actual space station.

All modules that will make up this space station are based on Bigelow’s expandable module tech. The plan is to have two B330 modules, as well as propulsion, some kind of power generation (most likely a solar array), a docking node and, eventually, capsules to accommodate crew.
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