NASA, Partners on Track to Deploy New Space Stations

NASA and its partners are on track to deploy three new space stations on the low-Earth orbit.

Angela Hart, manager of the commercial low earth orbit development program, said the space agency has made significant progress on better understanding the needs of specific hardware and processes and plans to start reviewing comprehensive designs in 2024.

Axiom Space is one of the many partners working on installing the new space stations. It is building the Axiom Hab One module, with the hatches already fabricated and prepared to undergo pressure testing to ensure it can withstand the vacuum of space, NASA said.

The two other space stations are being developed by Orbital Reef and Starlab.

NASA has been collaborating with several commercial partners to advance different interests in space. In early December, it tapped six businesses to create a robot to explore the southern region of the moon. The prototypes will then be evaluated, with the winning project receiving $1 million and the runner-up $500,000.

It also selected Capella Space, Maxar Intelligence, Spire Global and four other companies to showcase their work for the expanded Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program, which will provide Earth observation data to the government.