This is also another important hub of space policy: Starlab will be private and will be leased to space agencies, now owners of the magnificent ISS, which has had its day and will be deorbited in 2030. NASA therefore takes another step forward towards the use of private facilities as a customer, as it did for the launchers, now firmly in the hands of SpaceX almost in monopoly. If this doesn’t surprise us then, the attitude of the European Space Agency, ESA, changes completely with this agreement by rotating 180 degrees, we Europeans too will buy services from private individuals, and services of the highest technological level. A critical point for us to observe in its development very carefully.
This of the construction of an alternative space station, or more properly following the ISS, is in fact a race to see who arrives first, not very evident, but important and is considered a strategic move for the future of space control.
Axiom, an American company founded a few years ago, 2016, is also very advanced in the development of its space station, the pieces of which, let’s call them that, are tested by attaching them directly to the ISS, which will also happen in October of this year, for example, until until the entire Axiom space station will enter its orbit on its own with all its components tested. For us Italians it is important, as Minister Urso recently recalled, given that Axiom relies heavily on collaboration with Thales Alenia SPace, which has built a large part of the International Space Station over the last 30 years, around 50%, of the usable surface of the station itself, developing a truly unique experience in this highly specialized sector.
But Starlab and Axiom are not the only two, there is also Jeff Bezos who with his Blue Origin space company, together with Sierra Space, Boeing and others participates in the game, and has received funding of 130 million dollars again from NASA , apparently Jobs is further behind the other two actors. In the background then there is the question of the Moon: in fact, the Artemis project foresees that in cislunar orbit there will be an important space station to host astronauts on their journeys to and from the Moon.
What will these new space stations do, one rightly wonders. While Starlab assures that it will not devote itself to space tourism, which was a very popular topic months ago, the purpose of, for example, Blue Origin , by Bezos, a notoriously business-oriented person, is not very clear. What will certainly change is the basic attitude towards these jewels of today’s technology: they are no longer built with public money, which greatly hindered the imagination about their possible use, which can now perhaps be freed with less moral hesitation, but here can’t do anything but wait to see.