US looking at privatizing the International Space Station ‘Capabilities of the ISS as part of a future commercial platform’
WASHINGTON: Could the International Space Station become a commercial venture run by private industry? That is the wish of the White House, which hopes to end funding for the costly program within a few years, The Washington Post reported Sunday. The US plan, the paper said, involves privatizing the ISS, a low-orbit space station piloted by the US space agency NASA and developed jointly with its Russian counterpart.
The station has allowed international crews-notably in collaboration with the Canadian, European and Japanese space agencies-to pursue scientific research in the environment of a low Earth orbit. “The decision to end direct federal support for the ISS in 2025 does not imply that the platform itself will be deorbited at that time,” says an internal NASA document obtained by the Post. “It is possible that industry could continue to operate certain elements or capabilities of the ISS as part of a future commercial platform.”
Smooth transition
“NASA will expand international and commercial partnerships over the next seven years in order to ensure continued human access to and presence in low Earth orbit,” the document says. A budget request to be issued today by the Trump administration will call for $150 million to be spent on the ISS in the 2019 fiscal year, and more in succeeding years, “to enable the development and maturation of commercial entities and capabilities which will ensure that commercial successors to the ISS... are operational when they are needed.”
To ensure a smooth transition, the White House would ask the private sector to provide market analyses and development plans, the Post reported. The plan is expected to face stiff opposition. The United States has already spent some $100 billion to launch, operate and support the orbital station. Beginning during the presidency of George W Bush (2001-2009), NASA has subcontracted certain ISS support operations, starting with the supply flights now carried out by the SpaceX and Orbital ATK companies-a trend that gained speed during the Obama presidency. It was not clear, however, how private companies might profit from taking over the aging station-its first section was launched in 1998. NASA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Expected to face stiff opposition
Russia reschedules Soyuz launch Elsewhere, Russian space agency Roscosmos has delayed the launch of a Soyuz rocket carrying a Progress cargo ship by two days after Sunday’s planned lift-off was aborted at the last minute. “During the launch, an order was made for the engines to be automatically turned off, the causes are being clarified,” a Roscosmos statement said. “The launch is rescheduled for the reserve date of February 13.”
The supply freighter, known as Progress 69, was mounted atop a Soyuz2.1a which had been scheduled to lift off from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the aim of reaching the International Space Station (ISS) in a record three-and-a-half hours. Earlier, a source in the Russian space agency told news agency Interfax that the launch may have failed due to a computer failure in the control system.