Orbital Reef / Starlab / Noname Northrop Grumman Station

[Shpaget]

On 2.12.2021. NASA handed out a bunch of $ to three companies to develop and build three space stations. Awards are as follows:

• Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, for $130 million
• Nanoracks LLC, of Houston for $160 million
• Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, for $125.6 million

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-companies-to-develop-commercial-destinations-in-space

 

Blue Origin
Orbital Reef is a proposed  "mixed-use business park" intended to initially expand ISS with the Axiom module, but eventually separate from ISS and function as a standalone space station capable of accommodating 10 individuals in 830 m³ of volume. It is a joint project by Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation and a few others*.

https://blueorigin-static-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/orbital-reef-press-release-cld-12.2.21_nasa-sierra-clean.pdf

It is planned for this station to be in "mid-inclination" 500 km orbit and their offer is "Whether your business is scientific research, exploration system development, invention and manufacture of new and unique products, media and advertising, or exotic hospitality, you’ll find a berth here."

*Blue Origin – Partner, providing vehicle utility core systems, large-diameter modules, and the reusable heavy-lift New Glenn launch system.
Sierra Space – Partner, providing Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) modules, node modules, and runway-landing Dream Chaser spaceplane for crew and cargo transportation, capable of landing anywhere in the world. 
Boeing – Providing science modules, space station operations and maintenance, and the Starliner crew spacecraft.
Redwire Space – Providing payload operations and deployable structures, and support for microgravity research, development, and manufacturing.
Genesis Engineering Solutions – Providing the Single Person Spacecraft for routine external operations and tourist excursions.
Arizona State University – Providing research advisory services and public outreach through a global consortium of fourteen leading universities.
https://blueorigin-static-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/orbital-reef-one-pager.pdf

 

Nanoracks
"Fully owned by Nanoracks, Starlab is planned to reach initial operating capability in 2027, which ensures continuous human presence in LEO by U.S. entities. NASA will have the opportunity to purchase crew and payload services on Starlab through separate services contracts with Nanoracks."
https://nanoracks.com/nanoracks-voyager-space-and-lockheed-martin-awarded-nasa-contract/

It is planned to house 4 astronauts in 340 m³ volume, "the station also features a 60kW power and propulsion element, a large robotic arm for servicing cargo and external payloads, and a state-of-the-art laboratory system to host advanced research, science, and commercial capability."
https://nanoracks.com/starlab/

 

Northrop Grumman
They are partnered with Dynetics and other partners which will "be announced in the coming months".
"The station will have the ability to support four permanent crewmembers initially, with plans to expand to an eight-person crew and further capability beyond that. The station is designed for a permanent presence of 15 years."

"Northrop Grumman’s design, using flight-proven elements, provides the base modules for commercial capabilities including science, tourism and manufacturing. Multiple docking ports will allow future expansion to support exploration crew analog habitats, laboratories, crew airlocks and facilities capable of artificial gravity." (emphasis mine)
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-signs-agreement-with-nasa-to-design-space-station-for-low-earth-orbit

 

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

"mid-inclination" 500 km orbit

Isn't that a little bit... rad?

[SunlitZelkova]

47 minutes ago, DDE said:

Isn't that a little bit... rad?

A more PR friendly term would be "hot".

[kerbiloid]

53 minutes ago, DDE said:

Isn't that a little bit... rad?

ISS & Skylab 400+, radbelt is a little higher.

3 hours ago, Shpaget said:

10 individuals in 830 m³ of volume

830 / 10 = 83 m3 / piece= 4.4 x 4.4 x 4.4 m room.

So, if it sticks in the middle of the room, it won't be able to touch any wall and keep hanging until somebody founds its mummy/

3 hours ago, Shpaget said:

It is planned to house 4 astronauts in 340 m³ volume,

340 / 4 = 85 m³ / piece.

Is 85 m³ a new space luxury standard or cooks, stewardesses, and hostesses are treated as board equipment?

[insert_name]

Scott Manley pointed out the dragon on the bottom of the northrop one appears to have the end door still closed, which means it cant be docked, and is just floating below the station

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, insert_name said:

Scott Manley pointed out the dragon on the bottom of the northrop one appears to have the end door still closed, which means it cant be docked, and is just floating below the station

I had to zoom in real close - but you can see they used Clamp-o-Tron JR attached to the station.  

[tater]

https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/commercial-space-station/

Northrop Grumman stuff.

New video (pretty meh):

(shares the problem with not grokking Dragon)

 

 

On 12/5/2021 at 3:38 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I had to zoom in real close - but you can see they used Clamp-o-Tron JR attached to the station.  

https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/CLD_CONOPS_5.png

Bigger version of image.

[Beccab]

26 minutes ago, tater said:

(shares the problem with not grokking Dragon)

That's also a cargo dragon (no fins & no superdracos), so the station in the video must be pretty empty

Edited July 31, 2022 by Beccab

[tater]

 

[Beccab]

 

[tater]

Cool.

https://voyagerspace.com/

Starlab:

 

[Beccab]

Interesting - the proposal NASA funded was inflatable, but the one above seems to have ditched that

[darthgently]

55 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Interesting - the proposal NASA funded was inflatable, but the one above seems to have ditched that

Looks inflatable to me.  Bigelow style

[tater]

23 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Looks inflatable to me.  Bigelow style

He's showing the original, my pic was the fabricated one.

[Minmus Taster]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Cool.

https://voyagerspace.com/

Starlab:

 

Non-inflatable makes sense for an initial module, they seem to have added new docking ports to it which probably isn't possible with a non-rigid structure.

[Beccab]

An interesting note:

Lockmart's logo has also disappeared from it, and Voyager announced a few months ago a partnership with Airbus on Starlab - does this mean LM is out of the contract?

[tater]

Have they stated the diameter?

Looks like it might be ~4.5m?

[Beccab]

32 minutes ago, tater said:

Have they stated the diameter?

Looks like it might be ~4.5m?

Much more than that!

I couldn't find any post that showed the calculation, so I did it myself - if we take the port in the middle of your pic as a standard Common Berthing Module, and there's little reason to think it might not be (pic below), that port is going to be 1.8 meters in diameter

Spoiler

Starting from that and counting the pixels, this is what I got:


Which is almost half a meter wider than both Vulcan and New Glenn, and more than a meter larger than their internal fairing available space

Edit: It's possible it's an error in my hand calculation, but I've calculated above how much smaller it'd have to be to fit in the 6.35 meters of NG's internal diameter. Seems too much even accounting for the bad perspective, and the render should be correct; it's Nanoracks' after all

Edited January 11, 2023 by Beccab

[kerbiloid]

CBM lets a 127 cm cargo pass (clearance = 127 cm)

CBM total diameter = 2m (held by Canadarm)

IDSS  at 2 hours is 146 cm wide (without docking targets area around).

Canadarm diameter 38 cm.

Max. diameter ~= 8.3 m, i.e. double max of railroad cargo, or a 9..10 m standard barge payload zone width.

P.S.
Inkscape lets this be directly measured, it has ~1 cm/pix.

Edited January 11, 2023 by kerbiloid

[tater]

I had been thinking the 1.8m was the outer dia of that ring.

I used the actual docking adapter on the side, then used it's fraction of that 1/10 segment of the circumference and just got 6.86m dia. The docking adapter on the side is presumably 1.255m.

I would assume it fits in a 7m fairing, they're not morons, and that buys some sort of LV agnosticism.

[Beccab]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

I had been thinking the 1.8m was the outer dia of that ring.

I used the actual docking adapter on the side, then used it's fraction of that 1/10 segment of the circumference and just got 6.86m dia. The docking adapter on the side is presumably 1.255m.

I would assume it fits in a 7m fairing, they're not morons, and that buys some sort of LV agnosticism.

Nope, that still doesn't fit by quite a bit - half a meter for New Glenn, and 2+ meters for Vulcan. The only option to make that fit in NG would be to make it not use a fairing (like skylab), which throws away launcher agnosticism, or a large diameter fairing config of it, which would need quite a lot of development time and money currently not allocated - it took 3 years to build the machinery to make NG's fairing, and they still haven't completed their testing 5 years after that assembly line had completed construction. Even if they started now it'd be very hard to have it completed by the late 20s, and the only time a fairing that large was ever built was in the 1970s for Skylab


Imo, there's two options if the render is valid:
- our calculations are wrong
- the only launcher compatibility options Starlab will have are SLS and Starship
 

[tater]

9 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Imo, there's two options if the render is valid:
- our calculations are wrong

Seems the most likely. If I'm wrong by ~10% it fits, if your second guess is off by 3% it fits.

9 minutes ago, Beccab said:

- the only launcher compatibility options Starlab will have are SLS and Starship

This would effectively mean Starship, since SLS will never launch any such payload, ever. No plausible cadence to allow that, and more importantly, it would make such a station cost several times (or maybe an order of magnitude +) more than it should.

[tater]

I should add that if it is only SS, it seems like a nonstarter. While I personally think SS will eventually work, tying an entire project to that as the only possible launch vehicle seems... not terribly smart.

[Shpaget]

Update on this front!

Sierra Space performed a full scale burst test of their inflatable habitat. They achieved 77 psi (5,3 bar), or 27% above NASA's recommended level of 60,8 psi before the module burst, so they are happy with that.

The habitat called LIFE 1.0 (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) is cylinder 9 m in diameter, 6 m tall. With the volume of 285 m^3 it is about one third of the volume of ISS.

oops, I now realize there is a Sierra Nevada thread, which is actually the parent company of Sierra Space (I always thought those were two separate entities).

Edited January 22 by Shpaget

[Spaceception]

Should Axiom be added to this thread/title as well? It wasn't part of the same selection it looks like, but it is part of the program to build commercial replacements to the ISS.

Official site, https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station

Recent promo video

Image of the construction and station (looks both crisp and pixel-y, sorry)

 

And there was a video by Apogee a few years back that broke some of these stations down

One of the long term goals was artificial gravity. Has there been any mention or details of that by any of the contractors?