US military HQ The Pentagon has commissioned the development of a space station to carry out important experimental work, as the dawn of a new space race arrives. The new station, which will be built by the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), will assist the Federal government with training and operational space missions.
The cutting-edge aerospace company announced the deal on last week in conjunction with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) but refused to disclose the top-secret project’s cost.
DIU, which has headquarters in the Pentagon, has a mission to “accelerating the adoption of leading commercial technology throughout the military”.
Industry insiders believe the SNC attempt to modify existing plans for its 15ft (10m)-long Shooting Star space cargo transport vehicle rather than going back to the drawing board.
The newly-commissioned Unmanned Orbital Outpost will complement the Shooting Star project – in development since 2016 for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).
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Steve Lindsey, Senior Vice President of strategy for SNC’s Space Systems business area, who is also a retired US Air Force pilot and former NASA space shuttle commander, added: “We are proud to offer our transport vehicle to DoD as a free-flying destination for experimentation and testing, expanding beyond its current payload service capabilities for Dream Chaser cargo missions.”
DIU first announced its interest in a “solution … for a self-contained and free-flying orbital outpost,” a little more than a year ago.
The small-scale space station could support “space assembly, microgravity experimentation, logistics and storage, manufacturing, training, test and evaluation, hosting payloads, and other functions,” the Defense Innovation Unit had said in a statement last month.
‘Space assembly’ and ‘manufacturing refer to the potential future capability to assemble and service satellites and spacecraft in orbit around Earth.
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A SNC press release said: “The proposed orbital outpost will be initially established in LEO with guidance, navigation and control for sustained free-flight operations to host payloads and support space assembly, microgravity, experimentation, logistics, manufacturing, training, test and evaluation.”
This indicates the DIU remains interested in an orbital platform able of performing these and the other previously stated mission sets.
It added: “Future outposts may be based in a variety of orbits including, medium-Earth orbit, highly elliptical orbit, geosynchronous Earth orbits (GEO) to include GEO transfer orbits, and cislunar orbits.”