Two Companies added to NASA Deep Space Habitats Contract
NASA Selects Six Companies to Develop Prototypes, Concepts for Deep Space Habitats
“NASA has selected six U.S. companies to help advance the Journey to Mars by developing ground prototypes and concepts for deep space habitats.”
“The selected companies are:
– Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas
– Boeing of Pasadena, Texas
– Lockheed Martin of Denver
– Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia
– Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems of Louisville, Colorado
– NanoRacks of Webster, Texas”
Marc’s note: It’s interesting to note that in this follow-on contract from the 2015 NextSTEP selections, Sierra Nevada and NanoRacks are included. NanoRacks in particular is an intriguing participant as they attempt to expand their available products.
– NextSTEP Partners Develop Deep Space Habitat Ground Prototypes
“The selected companies are:
– Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas
– Boeing of Pasadena, Texas
– Lockheed Martin of Denver
– Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia
– Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems of Louisville, Colorado
– NanoRacks of Webster, Texas”
So…I foresee: first one is an inflatable/expandable module (natch!), then comes a metal can, then another metal can, and yet another metal can, and finally two wild-cards (although I can’t help picturing Nanoracks coming up with a big cube-shaped rack with Borg-receptacles)
100,000U?
That’s only 100 cubic meters.
Seriously, I’d bet on some sort of modular and configurable payload in a general-purpose habitat (possibly designed by someone else.) NanoRacks would be a good company to make the payload/experiments/whatever easily customized to a particular mission, while keeping the critical systems of the module generic.