Rockets of Today

— space stations —

If you still want more, here’s some information about current and proposed habitats which support long-term human residence in zero gravity. The current ones include the International Space Station, of course, along with the new Chinese station, Tiangong. We also cover the forthcoming Lunar Gateway. There is not yet an article for Russia’s proposed ROSS station in polar orbit, as I don’t judge their announced plan to be credible.

As the ISS is now making plans for its end of life around 2030, NASA is looking for one or more replacement stations, which would be privately owned. And several companies have talked up their visions for such stations, angling for NASA support to become a major successor to the ISS. The only one of these which is already building hardware and already has NASA signed up to pay them to use it is Axiom Space, whose station will spend its first five years or so acting as an add-on to the ISS, before going independent. In the Axiom page I run briefly through some of the other commercial station proposals, as we wait to see whether they’re going to amount to anything.

— Stations included with current filters: · ISS · Tiangong · LOP-G · Axiom Station —