NASA breathed a deep sigh of relief six years ago when SpaceX launched two astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, on a successful mission to the International Space Station. With the safe landing of Crew Dragon, the US space agency broke a nearly decade-long gap in its ability to put humans into orbit.
Through its Commercial Crew program and multibillion-dollar contracts awarded in 2014, NASA had hoped to foster two providers of low-Earth orbit transportation, SpaceX and Boeing. However Boeing has yet to complete a successful crewed test flight—a perilous 2024 test flight by Boeing’s Starliner was later declared a Type A mishap—and probably won’t fly another crewed mission before 2028.
With the International Space Station slated for retirement in the early 2030s, NASA is partnering with several US companies to develop private space stations. As part of that effort, the private companies will have to work with NASA to determine how they will transport astronauts to and from their space stations, some of which could launch as soon as 2030.
And it turns out this is more difficult than it sounds.
The key players in the effort to build private space stations are Axiom Space, Vast Space, Voyager, Blue Origin, and possibly SpaceX. Of these companies, Axiom Space has previously worked with SpaceX to fly private astronauts on Crew Dragon to the space station, and Vast Space will use Dragon to support its early space stations. SpaceX is likely planning to use its Starship vehicle as a potential space station, if it decides to enter the NASA competition.
Crew Dragon would seem to be the obvious answer for commercial space stations in the 2030s, but there are some questions. The first of these is availability. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has said the company will fly Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket for a finite number of years, possibly for less than a decade as the company transitions its launches to Starship. Could humans launch on Starship? Eventually, but this seems unlikely before the mid-2030s, and docking the large Starships to smaller space stations would be challenging.
NASA, obviously, will want Crew Dragon to fly longer, and this will have some influence. But gradually pretty much all of SpaceX’s launch activity, beginning with Starlink satellites but eventually other commercial satellites, will migrate to Starship. This would leave SpaceX in the position of keeping a Falcon 9 production line open just to support Crew Dragon, which would certainly increase the price. Although Crew Dragon pricing is a closely held secret, multiple sources say costs have already risen in recent years for the crewed launch vehicle.
After speaking to officials with several of the private space station companies, it is clear these concerns are front of mind. The bulk of expenses in operating a space station will come not from the facility itself, but safely transporting crew and cargo to the facilities. The providers do not have certainty that Crew Dragon will be available for the long haul, and they also have pricing concerns due to Falcon 9 availability, as well as lack of competition.
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” one industry source told Ars about Crew Dragon availability in the 2030s.
The alternatives are not ideal. Boeing’s Starliner vehicle may eventually become operational, but it is not clear how committed the large aerospace company is to the program. Boeing began shopping some of its space assets, including Starliner, a year and a half ago. No sale has been closed, and one person told Ars that is because Boeing has been asking too high of a price.
Even if SpaceX raises crew transportation prices, it seems unlikely that Boeing will be able to compete on reliability (given that Dragon has now flown nearly 20 times, successfully) or cost. One major disadvantage of the Boeing system is that most of the vehicle’s propulsion is housed in its service module, which is jettisoned before reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and is much more expensive to replace between flights than Dragon’s comparatively simple “trunk.”
Another alternative is Blue Origin, which has quietly been working on a crewed vehicle to fly atop the New Glenn rocket for several years. There has been limited public confirmation of this, but Blue Origin did sign a Space Act Agreement with NASA in 2021 to gain access to data and software used by the Orion spacecraft for optical and navigation systems. Ars has also previously reported on these spacecraft development efforts.
It does stand to reason that if Jeff Bezos envisions a future with millions of people working in space, he would not neglect the capacity to transport people into orbit. Nevertheless, no one is sure how long it will take Blue Origin to complete development of a crew vehicle. Moreover, launch costs on New Glenn would not come cheap.
Beyond that, NASA and private space station companies may need to look to an emerging company across the pond.
Last week a Europe-based firm, The Exploration Company, hosted an office-opening celebration in Webster, Texas. At the facility, located just a couple of miles from Johnson Space Center, founder Hélène Huby said her company was considering making Houston the base of its operations to develop a crewed spacecraft.
The Exploration Company has already won funding from the European Space Agency to develop a cargo vehicle, called Nyx, to carry supplies to the International Space Station. An initial mission may happen in late 2028 or 2029. And Huby has made no secret of her desire to build a crew vehicle.
“It’s very clear that in the United States there is a big need for an additional crew vehicle, and nobody exactly knows if Dragon will continue to serve,” she said. “And even if Dragon continues to serve, which I wish it will because it’s an amazing vehicle, then it’s good to have a bit more competition. And also the path for Boeing is kind of uncertain right now.”
Huby is seeking to attract funding both from the European Space Agency and NASA for development of a crew vehicle, and then to leverage that money to raise additional private capital for a crew vehicle. The company has already taken preliminary steps toward this, which she estimates will require about eight years and $4 billion.
If this sounds far-fetched, perhaps it should not seem so. Huby has shown considerable skill in working with European space officials to emerge as a leading contender to build a crew vehicle at a time when leaders there have made their desires for one clear.
Additionally, at the office-opening party this week, there were representatives from both Axiom Space and Voyager on hand. Both companies have already signed deals for cargo services. If they like what they see with Nyx, it would not be too difficult to envision them signing up for crewed missions.
