The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA, Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), and CSA (Canada). The ISS is the largest space station ever built. Its primary purpose is to perform microgravity and space environment experiments.
A space station is a spacecraft which remains in orbit and hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring habitation facilities. The purpose of maintaining a space station varies depending on the program. Most often space stations have been research stations, but they have also served military or commercial uses, such as hosting space tourists.
A space settlement is a settlement in outer space, sustaining more extensively habitation facilities in space than a general space station or spacecraft. Possibly including closed ecological systems, its particular purpose is permanent habitation.
TransHab was a program pursued by NASA in the late 1990s to develop the technology for expandable habitats inflated by air in space. TransHab was intended as a replacement for the existing rigid International Space Station crew Habitation Module. When deflated, inflatable modules provide an 'easier to launch' compact form. When fully inflated, TransHab would expand to 8.2 metres (27 ft) in diameter.
Bigelow Aerospace was an American space design and manufacturing company which closed its doors in 2020. It was an aeronautics and outer space technology company which manufactured and developed expandable space station modules. Bigelow Aerospace was founded by Robert Bigelow in 1998, and was based in North Las Vegas, Nevada. It was funded in large part by the profit Bigelow gained through his ownership of the hotel chain, Budget Suites of America.
The Habitation Module for the International Space Station was intended to be the Station's main living quarters designed with galley, toilet, shower, sleep stations and medical facilities. About the size of a bus, the module was canceled after its pressurized hull was complete. If named and sent into space, the Habitation Module would have been berthed to Tranquility.
Tranquility, also known as Node 3, is a module of the International Space Station (ISS). It contains environmental control systems, life support systems, a toilet, exercise equipment, and an observation cupola.
The B330 was an inflatable space habitat privately developed by Bigelow Aerospace from 2010 until 2020. The design was evolved from NASA's TransHab habitat concept. B330 was to have 330 cubic meters (12,000 cu ft) of internal volume, hence its numeric designation.
A moonbase is a human outpost on or below the surface of the Moon. More than a mere site of activity or temporary camp, moonbases are extraterrestrial bases, supporting robotic or human activity, by providing surface infrastructure. Missions to the Moon have realized single-mission bases,, as well as some small permanent infrastructure like lunar laser ranging installations.
Inflatable habitats or expandable habitats are pressurized tent-like structures capable of supporting life in outer space whose internal volume increases after launch. They have frequently been proposed for use in space applications to provide a greater volume of living space for a given mass.
The process of assembling the International Space Station (ISS) has been under way since the 1990s. Zarya, the first ISS module, was launched by a Proton rocket on 20 November 1998. The STS-88 Space Shuttle mission followed two weeks after Zarya was launched, bringing Unity, the first of three node modules, and connecting it to Zarya. This bare 2-module core of the ISS remained uncrewed for the next one and a half years, until in July 2000 the Russian module Zvezda was launched by a Proton rocket, allowing a maximum crew of three astronauts or cosmonauts to be on the ISS permanently.
Space architecture is the theory and practice of designing and building inhabited environments in outer space. This mission statement for space architecture was developed in 2002 by participants in the 1st Space Architecture Symposium, organized at the World Space Congress in Houston, by the Aerospace Architecture Subcommittee, Design Engineering Technical Committee (DETC), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
The US Orbital Segment (USOS) is the name given to the components of the International Space Station (ISS) constructed and operated by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The segment consists of eleven pressurized components and various external elements, almost all of which were delivered by the Space Shuttle.
The Bigelow Next-Generation Commercial Space Station was a private orbital space station under conceptual development by Bigelow Aerospace in the 2000s and 2010s. Previous concepts of the space station had included multiple modules, such as two B330 expandable spacecraft modules as well as a central docking node, propulsion, solar arrays, and attached crew capsules. However it was also suggested that each B330 can operate as an independent space station. Attaching a B330 to the International Space Station or flying a B330 alone have been suggested by Robert Bigelow.
Human analog missions are activities undertaken on Earth in various environments to simulate aspects of human missions to other worlds, including the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. These remote field tests are performed in locations that are identified based on their physical similarities to the extreme space environments of a target mission. Such activities are undertaken to test hardware and operational concepts in relevant environments.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is an experimental expandable space station module developed by Bigelow Aerospace, under contract to NASA, for testing as a temporary module on the International Space Station (ISS) from 2016 to at most 2028, when the contract can not be further extended. It arrived at the ISS on 10 April 2016, was berthed to the station on 16 April 2016, and was expanded and pressurized on 28 May 2016. Although originally planned to be a two year test, it has exceeded expectations and is used as additional cargo storage. The module is under ownership of NASA after Bigelow Aerospace suspended operations in 2021.
Axiom Space, Inc., also known as Axiom Space, is an American privately funded space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Axiom Station is a planned modular space station designed by Houston, Texas-based Axiom Space for commercial space activities. Axiom Space gained initial NASA approval for the venture in January 2020. Axiom Space was later awarded the contract by NASA on February 28, 2020. Axiom Station is one of multiple Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) projects supported by NASA to build a successor to the International Space Station (ISS) before its decommissioning in 2030.
Starlab is a LEO commercial space station currently under development by Starlab Space, a joint venture between the U.S. company Voyager Space and European company Airbus. If development continues beyond the initially-funded phase in 2021–24, then Starlab would be launched before the decommissioning of the ISS, no earlier than 2028. The development program has received partial funding from both NASA and the ESA.
