Forecasting Future NASA Demand in Low Earth Orbit

Abstract

The U.S. Congress's NASA Authorization Act of 20171 directed NASA to develop an International Space Station (ISS) Transition Plan, specifically "to transition in a step-wise approach from the current regime that relies heavily on NASA sponsorship to a regime where NASA could be one of many customers of a low-Earth orbit (LEO) nongovernmental human space flight enterprise." This vision may include a transfer of all or parts of the ISS itself to commercial entities, in concert with the ISS International Partner agencies, or a complete transition off the ISS to other commercial platforms in LEO. In either scenario, NASA intends to segue its government role from a supplier of its own LEO services to a customer of commercially-provided services for its needs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 26, 2018
Accession Number
AD1085132

Entities

Organizations

  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Earth Orbits
  • Flight
  • Governments
  • Low Earth Orbits
  • Orbits
  • Physical Sciences
  • Planetary Sciences
  • Platforms
  • Space Environments
  • Space Flight
  • Space Sciences
  • Space Stations
  • Space Systems
  • Transitions
  • Transportation

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering.
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Defense Technology Research and Development.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Orbital Debris