NASA Will Shake Up The ISS Replacement Program

Hello everyone. Welcome to Tomorrow. If you're a fan of space stations, you're going to want to know about this new directive that acting NASA administrator Shawn Duffy has just put out to the different NASA directors. This directive completely shakes up how they are going to go about the replacement for the International Space Station or the commercial LEO destinations program. Leo Destinations program is h it got started four years ago in 2021 to help fund the development of the replacement for the international space station and the first phase of it was through a series of funded and unfunded space act agreements between NASA and several commercial companies. Some of it was just an exchange of technical information so those companies would be on the right track and others were a little bit more serious amount of funding to actually build a replacement. And even the definition of what the replacement would even be has kind of changed over the years from being a full replacement, the same amount of capabilities that we have right now with the International Space Station to less and less and less and less. It seems to me like Duffy is operating under the president's budget proposal for NASA instead of the kind of push back that Congress has been doing for whatever fiscal year 2026 budget is going to be. So with that in mind, the president's proposal only had 273 million for fiscal year 2026 and 2.1 billion over the next 5 years for the development and deployment of a new commercial space station. And in order to reduce a potential gap in capability and to try to meet the goals under a limited budget, what Duffy is proposing is a change to how they go about doing this program. As a reminder, in case you missed it, Axiom Space is actually not a part of the LEO Destinations program. They received a contract for $140 million to study first attaching their modules to the International Space Station before becoming a standalone uh space station in its own right. That was through a different program called the NextStep program that got started in the 2010s and it was through one of the appendixes of that program that Axiom received their contract. So for the LEO destinations program, originally it was Nanorax which became Voyager space doing their Starlab module and then there's the orbital reef program between Blue Origin, Boeing and Sierra Space. Although it kind of seems like that program has stalled quite a bit and Sierra Space might go their own way with their life module and try to do their own thing and they might still do orbital reef but it just kind of seems like everyone's moving in their own direction instead of working together. Northup Grumman was also originally part of the LEO destinations program and they quit after a while and joined Voyager Space offering their signis cargo vehicle to supply cargo to that space station instead. Voyager Space got $160 million. The Blue Origin team got $130 million and Northrup was supposed to get $125 million and received about $35 million before they withdrew from the program. Kind of, you know what I mean? They didn't withdraw completely. They joined another team. After Northrup pulled out, the remaining money of their contract basically got divvied up between the Blue Origin team for Orbital Reef and the Star Lab team, between Voyager Space and now Airbus. though without having a ton of money to work with right now and especially like I said with Duffy operating under the president's budget proposal and assuming that there's not going to be a whole lot of money for this program instead of moving forward in phase 2 with a firm fixed price contract certification and services NASA would continue to support US industry's design and demonstration with multiple funded space act agreements for the next phase NASA would then shift the formal design except acceptance and certification planning acceptance to a follow-on certification phase. Basically, they would certify the vehicle after it's flying. They're not going to certify something that hasn't even launched yet. They're going to have them launch demonstrate a mission. And later on in this memo, it talks about demonstrating with non-NASA personnel. So, a private astronaut mission. And if everything goes well, then NASA would certify them to get the the big contract to do NASA services there at their space station. Some of the features of doing it this way would utilize the space act agreements to grant maximum flexibility to industry partners to design and develop a free-flying platform without so many stringent requirements that it would hold them back from actually being able to do it. And it would be a full and open competition to all interested parties. Not just to the two teams that are already getting money, but to potentially more companies. Sierra Space has an opportunity now to get some sort of contract to do a standalone version of their life module. Other companies as well who initially expressed interest in the LEO destination program could apply again, especially if their technology has matured since 2021. Back then, a lot of rocket companies like SpaceX, Relativity Space, Firefly Space were all interested in pursuing this program somehow. So maybe they could dust off their proposals and try again. International space agencies are welcome to make direct agreements and partnering agreements with commercial LEO destination providers during this phase or any subsequent phases. Meaning that they're not barred from working directly with another space agency other than NASA. Doing it this way would have the ability to award a minimum of two minimum of two preferably three or more providers within 6 months of the release of the AFP. I think AFP stands for uh announcement for proposals or you know seeking proposals, acquisition of proposals, something along those lines. And a good way to prevent getting ripped off, payments via milestones with no less than 25% of the total agreement value paid after a successful inspace crude demonstration. So let's say there is a $2 billion contract. Um NASA would withhold $500 million of a $2 billion contract until they've proven in space with crew that their system works. Now, this is the part right here that I don't know how I feel about it. It's a little depressing, but also better than nothing. It says that the end capability previously called full operational capability, full replacement of the ISS originally required by NASA will no longer be binding. The minimum capability required minimum capability will be for four crew for one month increments. That's the bare minimum. And hopefully that would be more than just one mission like that. I think they're saying that as one mission at a time. This can't all be for just a single one month mission. That would be ridiculous. So here's the action plan moving forward. Within 60 days of this directive, the Space Operations Mission Directorate shall issue a new phase 2 announcement for proposal. Aha, that's what AFP stands for, announcement for proposal. So, within 60 days, we'll get the actual here's your application form that these companies can start applying for. Interesting. NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate team will not exceed 25 full-time engineer equivalents on a yearly basis and a maximum of 10% overhead cost to manage. Cool. Let's keep the NASA cost down while we're still in the planning phase. All right. So within 120 days of this, this office is going to publish a certification transition framework to outline requirements for moving from space act agreements to formal certification including safety, human rating, and operational integration. Sincerely, the honorable Shaun Duffy, administrator, acting. So yeah, even though Duffy again seems to be operating under the president's budget request instead of the push back that Congress is doing right now, it doesn't necessarily mean that even if Congress does something completely different that the amount of money for this specific program for the LEO destinations program is really going to change that much. So, still a good idea to kind of keep pushing in this direction and keep doing these Space Act agreements so that we can move forward with some sort of capability. I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that the companies with the most amount of progress is Vast, who doesn't even have a funded space act agreement with NASA yet. They have unfunded ones to exchange data and whatnot, but they're making the most progress. And then of course there's Axiom, but they're paying Talisolinia to build their station modules for them. And the Italian company has been doing an amazing job, but Axiom has been running into money problems. And I'm willing to bet you anything they've already blown through the amount of money that they got from the NextStep program, the $140 million that they got through that contract, which by the way was also in 2021 when they finally got that contract for the 140 million because they're having money troubles or at least there's rumors of them having money troubles. I don't know where they stand. I want to believe that they're doing fine and that they'll continue to move forward. I would love to see at least two of these commercial space stations actually in orbit. At least two. What I really want is for like four or five of them to actually launch into space and not too far away from each other so that they can rendevous and dock together to become a super space station. That's what I really want. So, here's hoping that within a couple of months from now, we get all the full details on how these different space station companies are supposed to proceed. And then a couple of months after that, hopefully, we get actual announcements of, okay, here's who we're giving money to. Here's who we're giving a chance to. And here's the actual milestone so that you know from our perspective, me and you, we know exactly where these companies are at and what they need to achieve in order to pull this off. I know we all want to move on to bigger and better things like exploring the moon and exploring Mars with astronauts, but I really believe that we still need to have some sort of space station in low Earth orbit if for no other reason than for training purposes to train rookie astronauts before they undertake their lunar or Martian missions. That's just me, though. But what do you guys think about this? Do you think that this is going to slow down some of the companies who are already working on this? Do you think this is going to help speed up the program? Do you think that this is going to give new opportunities to other companies out there who are interested in participating or is it going to stay within the three that we already have been following for a little while now? But yeah, what do you think about this? Is this new directive a good way to move forward or is it just going to complicate things? Let me know what you think in the comments. If you enjoyed this update, be sure to give us a like and subscribe if you haven't already and hit the bell so that you're notified whenever we upload a new video and also consider becoming a member for as little as a dollar a month to help support us make videos like this and also to get access to exclusive content. Thank you very much to everyone who has been supporting us already. We wouldn't be able to do this without you. Thank you for watching this video and until the next time I see you guys, keep moving onwards and upwards and don't forget add Astra to the stars.