SPACE NEWS by Jeff Foust March 25, 2026
NASA, concerned about slow development of commercial markets, is considering revamping its strategy for supporting the creation of commercial space stations to succeed the International Space Station.
At its March 24 “Ignition” event where NASA outlined sweeping changes to its exploration strategy, including redirecting work on the Gateway towards a lunar base and flying a nuclear propulsion demonstration mission to Mars as soon as 2028, the agency said it is weighing an alternative approach to help establish commercial ISS successors.
NASA’s current strategy, under its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations, or CLD, program, has been to fund initial work by several companies on their designs. Those companies have been awaiting a call for proposals for the second phase of the CLD program, where NASA would provide additional funding for development and demonstration of those stations ahead of purchasing services from them.
The intent of the CLD program was for NASA to be one customer of many for those stations, with companies and other space agencies also using those facilities. But at the Ignition event, agency officials said they were increasingly concerned that the business case for those stations was not closing.
“Though we have seen investor interest, there’s no independently verifiable market research indicating the economic viability of a commercial station that is only partially funded by NASA,” Dana Weigel, NASA ISS program manager, said in a presentation.
The projected market, she said later, has not emerged as fast as originally projected.
“Many years ago, when we started this program, the data we had was that we’re 10 years away from a mature market,” she said. “As we’ve watched over time, these independent market research surveys continue to tell us it’s about that far out.”
More:
https://spacenews.com/nasa-proposes-new-strategy-for-commercial-space-stations/
