NASA has fired the starting gun on one of the biggest contracts in commercial spaceflight, releasing a draft solicitation on 6 July inviting private firms to design, build, and operate a space station to replace the ageing International Space Station (ISS). The prize is a foothold in a market analysts expect to grow from roughly $4.2B (£3.1B) today to more than $20B (£15B) by the mid-2030s, with the winners becoming the landlords of low Earth orbit.
The draft request for proposals, first reported by the aerospace press and confirmed on NASA's own site, sets out how the agency will pick the companies that succeed the ISS when it is retired in 2030. Industry analysts put the value of this next phase of contracts at $1B to $1.5B (£750M to £1.1B), though the draft itself names no figure. Either way, it is the moment the private space-station race turns from concept to cash.
