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The Trump administration has taken another small step towards its biggest step forward to commercialize space lab activities, even as NASA struggles to put current commercialization plans in place.
A new White House memo released Friday, Aug. 14, said low-earth orbit research “on new platforms” – commercial facilities that could succeed the International Space Station – should be a priority. It was released as part of the annual Joint Initiative to Set Budgetary Priorities in Research and Development between the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
While this year’s memo has very similar wording to that released last year, according to SpaceNews, there is a key phrase that shows the new prioritization of low Earth orbit (LEO) research.
“Microgravity research in the biological and physical sciences on new platforms in low Earth orbit is important for enabling longer duration human missions in space, and may have practical benefits for life on Earth,” says the memo, which you can consult here.
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Similar to last year, the memo says LEO is part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to bring humans back to the moon’s surface by 2024, this time accompanied by a fleet of private vehicles built as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Services Program. The moon is positioned as a “proving ground for future human missions to Mars,” just as the White House said in the 2019 memo, but the new memo adds a line referring to “exploration and long-term use “as another reason for exploring the lunar surface.
The new memo also added “orbital debris management” – or the tracking and disposal of potentially dangerous “space debris” that persist in Earth orbit – to the list of items that should be prioritized in research. and development. Otherwise, the wishlist is very similar to last year, with things like advanced propulsion and in situ resource use (living off resources available on another world).
In line with the administration’s priorities, NASA has steered the International Space Station (ISS) towards even more commercialization than today. The past year alone included a plan to open the facility to private astronauts and the competitive selection of Houston-based company Axiom Space to build at least one private habitable module to attach to the orbiting complex. This new work is in addition to ongoing efforts to fly commercial experiments on the ISS under an agreement between NASA and the Houston-based aerospace company Nanoracks.
Related: The International Space Station is open for business
Congress has been cold for NASA’s marketing efforts to date. In FY2020, Congress allocated $ 15 million to commercialize LEO, just a tenth of the $ 150 million NASA requested, SpaceNews said. For fiscal year 2021, NASA again requested $ 150 million, but the House spending version of the bill only allowed $ 15 million. (The Senate has not yet finalized its version.)
Apart from research and development activities, NASA has increased its use of private vehicles on the ISS in recent years. This year, the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission successfully returned the first commercial crew to space and home, capping more than a decade of development and testing; Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut taxi was tested in space on a single unmanned mission, but encountered several issues that required further development.
The ISS also regularly accepts shipments of private taxis from SpaceX and Northrop Grumman under commercial resupply agreements; a new deal will soon add Sierra Nevada Corp’s Dream Chaser. to the fleet of freighters available. The first launch of the Dream Chaser “Tenacity” spacecraft will take place at the end of 2021.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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