NASA adds funding to Blue Origin and Voyager Space commercial space station agreements

TITUSVILLE, Fla. – NASA has added milestones and funding to agreements with two companies working on commercial space station concepts using funds from a third agreement that expired last year.

NASA announced Jan. 5 that it has added a total of $99.5 million in funding to existing Space Act agreements with Blue Origin and Voyager Space. The two companies secured the original agreements in December 2021 as part of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit, or CLD, program to stimulate the development of commercial space stations aimed at succeeding the International Space Station.

Blue Origin, which is developing the Orbital Reef space station with Sierra Space and other companies, received a $42 million increase from its original award of $130 million. The increment includes additional phases to review subsystem design and technology maturity, as well as work on the station's life support systems.

Voyager Space, which partnered with Airbus Defense and Space to develop the Starlab station, received an additional $57.5 million in funding on top of its $160 million award. This will achieve various development milestones for the station in addition to working to upgrade Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo spacecraft to enable it to dock directly with the station instead of docking to it with a robotic arm.

“The milestones target areas of technology and risk reduction in our partners' designs,” Phil McAllister, commercial space director at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement about the revised agreements. “The milestones also include additional hardware testing, which is critical to any spaceflight development effort.”

Funding comes primarily from the third CLD agreement awarded by NASA to Northrop Grumman. Northrop announced in October that it would no longer pursue its own space station, but would instead work with Voyager Space on Starlab, including providing a version of Cygnus to carry cargo to Starlab.

As part of that partnership, Northrop withdrew from NASA's CLD agreement. The agency said in October that it plans to reallocate the $89 million that Northrop did not spend on its $125.6 million grant to other CLD providers. NASA said in a January 5 announcement that it combined these unused funds with “other program funding” to reach $99.5 million that it added to the Blue Origin and Voyager Space agreements.

NASA is also in discussions with Axiom Space, which has a separate contract with NASA for access to a docking port on the International Space Station for commercial modules that will form the basis for a future independent commercial space station. NASA said it is negotiating “additional content” for this contract with Axiom, the details of which are still being worked out.

The agreements with Axiom Space, Blue Origin and Voyager Space are all part of NASA's strategy to support the development of commercial stations that the agency wants to operate by late this decade to support the transition of the International Space Station, scheduled to retire in 2030. It will then be a customer of those commercial stations along with Other space agencies and companies.

“The agency is committed to continuing to work with industry with the goal of having one or more stations in orbit to ensure competition, reduce costs, and meet demand from NASA and other customers,” said Angela Hart, CLD program manager at NASA's Johnson Space. The center said in the statement.

However, concerns remain about companies' ability to develop commercial space stations by the end of the decade. At a November 20 NASA advisory committee meeting, McAllister acknowledged the possibility of a short-term hiatus between the ISS and commercial stations if those commercial stations are not ready by the end of the decade and the ISS is not extended.

“The gap will not be large, but I also don't think it will be irreparable, especially if it is relatively short-term,” he said at that meeting.

At the same meeting, Hart said it was now difficult to estimate the likelihood that at least one commercial terminal would be ready in time. The agency may not have a better understanding of those companies' abilities to meet their timelines until after NASA issues what it calls Phase II contracts in 2026 to certify stations for use by NASA astronauts and purchase services.

“The first six months to a year, once this contract is awarded, is where I think we will have the best understanding of our timeline,” she said.

Related