Time line for space exploration for the next 7 years seems to be primarily driven by the deorbiting of the International Space Station, which is coming down in 2031. NASA expects multiple space stations by various groups to have been built and in orbit by then, so as to not experience a time when Earth does not have a space station(s) in orbit.
Musk has the contract to build a ship to control the deorbiting of the space station. It will be modeled after the Dragon Capsule but have a total of 46 engines and be carrying 35,000 pounds of fuel. It will be launched 1-1/2 years before the station is coming down. The current schedule puts that somewhere between 2029 and 2030. It will be destroyed along with the space station.
Projected replacement space stations are an international effort but it is
SpaceX that is handling the day to day operations of getting things and people into space and back to Earth again. So while Musk says he is going to Mars and skipping the Moon, his companies are providing the means for orbiting Earth and lunar explorations.
The Lunar Gateway Station, which will orbit the Moon, is a collaboration of Five space agencies, including NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC).
Gateway by Frederik Pohl is a story where an abandoned alien space ship fleet is found on an asteroid and people can take ships that are on autopilot out and see where it goes, either bringing back treasures or maybe never coming back.
Gateway
will orbit the Moon and be launched and set up for use with a lot of help from SpaceX. It has 2 parts so far, a
propulsion module, and a living quarters module for astronauts exploring the Moon called HALO,
Habitation and Logistics Outpost. The welds have been completed and are being tested. If successful, the module will be transported from Italy to Arizona, where it will be outfitted for space. The propulsion module is being built and will be attached to the HALO and will be launched using a SpaceX rocket.
The launch date is projected to be December 2027. NASA says it should be earlier than that, especially if it is to be used in conjunction with the Artemis program to put astronauts on the Moon, which supposedly will have already started.
Meanwhile, NASA is studying several different solutions for the problem of how to cope with the particularly abrasive lunar dust. For such tiny particles it's a big problem for people and equipment in semi permanent lunar dwellings.
Various solutions are being tested:
Electrostatic Dust Shields (EDS) for preventing dust from sticking
Specialized Brushes to remove the dust
Slippery Coatings to prevent dust from sticking
Ultrasonic Waves to sonically brush off dust
Liquid Nitrogen Spray to was off the dust
Airlock Integration: Implementing dust removal systems in the airlocks(s) so the dust doesn't get into living quarters or equipment inside the space station.
Other stations that orbit the earth are being put forward by private industry.
Two of them use inflatable habitats.
Starlab Space Station is for low Earth orbit, a US venture operated by Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin. It has become a joint venture involving companies representing all Western ISS partners.
The main structure consists of a large inflatable habitat of 340 cubic meters that is being built by Airbus, a French company, that replaces the original Lockheed Martin design.
It is supposed to be on schedule, more or less, and within budget. With space for 4 astronauts, it was originally scheduled for launch in 2027, the date is now 2028.
Axion Space Station, a private US company run by former NASA members and astronauts, it aims to have its own space station up and running before the International Space Station comes down. They have run private missions to the Space station using SpaceX equipment to get there and back to Earth. They have agreements with European Space Agency (ESA) members for future flights. Their plan is to assemble the Axion space station composed of 4 sections at the original space station, and then launch it from there. They are behind schedule and may only have some of the sections docked at the space station before the space station is decommissioned. The first section is expected to be launched in 2026, 2 years behind schedule. Axion is interested in training people for in-space research, in-space manufacturing, and space exploration.
Orbital Reef Space Station, this was Jeff Bezos vision of a mixed use business park with tourist attractions. All the space station projects envision a bustling tourist trade. The Orbital Reef Space Station does not appear to a viable option anymore, as Blue Horizon is looking to other horizons farther away, such as landing on the Moon, for which Blue Horizon has a 3.4 billion dollar contract to build lunar lander. One of the other companies involved was Sierra Space which is more interested in developing a space plane capable of flying out to space stations. The space plane was envisioned by NASA as a way of transporting cargo to and from the International space Station. It is behind schedule and over budget with the first flight not expected until 2025.
There are other companies and countries planning on building space stations as well, but an interesting one is
Vast, founded by billionaire Jed McCaleb, who made a fortune in crypto currency. He envisions a space station with artificial gravity. The station(s) will be setup for 4 people and will not be self sufficient to start with, needing replenishing every 30 days of use, which is how long the station is leased for. It will be used to conduct scientific tests, microgravity experiments, space manufacturing, artificial gravity, and tourism.
Its first orbiting station, called Haven-1 is expected to be launched the second half of 2025 by SpaceX. It is set up for leasing 30 day missions with internet supplied by StarLink services. The first launch, called VAST-1, is scheduled for launch no sooner than August 2025. One of the experiments to be performed is to fire the stations rockets so that the station starts rotating to test the concept of artificial gravity on board a space station.
Their second station,
Haven-2 will be 15 meters long, compared to 10 meters for Haven-1. They say it will be launched in 2028 to replace the International Space Station in 2030. They expect to get a contract from NASA in 2026 to provide a replacement space station for the International Space Station.
The Chinese Space Station, started in 2021 and completed in 2022, is much smaller than the International Space Station but they will be adding 3 more modules for a total of 6. They are constructing a a huge, Hubble-like space telescope, named Xuntian ("survey the heavens") which will share the space station's orbit and be able to dock with it for repairs, maintenance and possibly upgrades. The first repair station in space. It will have a field of view 300 times greater than the Hubble, and is expected to survey 40% of the sky over 10 years using its huge, 2.5-billion-pixel camera.
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