ESA signed an agreement with Vast<\/a>, another company planning commercial stations, to study potential use of those stations by the agency.<\/p>\n\u201cWe would really like to be able to continue to perform science and technology development in low Earth orbit,\u201d said Andreas Mogensen, an ESA astronaut, during a panel discussion at the Paris Air Show June 19. \u201cWe are really exploring the possibilities of how we can cooperate, not just as a user and a paying customer, but also as a partner with many of these commercial entities.\u201d<\/p>\n
ESA has been testing out those approaches through private astronaut missions to the ISS. Marcus Wandt, a Swedish ESA reserve astronaut, flew to the station on Axiom Space\u2019s Ax-3 mission last year while Polish ESA reserve astronaut S\u0142awosz Uzna\u0144ski-Wi\u015bniewski will go to the station on the upcoming Ax-4 mission.<\/p>\n
He said ESA was \u201cforesighted\u201d in its decision to select reserve astronauts and support private astronaut missions. Astronauts on those short-duration flights are focused entirely on science, he noted, while long-duration crew members spend much of their time on station maintenance. \u201cIt really gives us a huge boost in our utilization of the space station.\u201d<\/p>\n
ESA wants to maintain a \u201ccontinuous presence and use\u201d of low Earth orbit in its long-term plans, said Daniel Neuenschwander, director of human and robotic exploration at ESA, said on the same panel. \u201cCLDs are potential platforms that could enable the implementation of this objective.\u201d<\/p>\n
That would include agreements for a series of ESA missions to those stations. \u201cWe are definitely looking into the possibilities to have multiple astronaut flights,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m quite keen to see what these actors will propose as possibilities to conclude multi-flight agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency is also examining how to make the best research use of future stations. \u201cOn the ISS on the science side, we\u2019ve been a bit spoiled,\u201d said Angelique Van Ombergen, ESA\u2019s chief exploration scientist, citing the range of experiment facilities on the station by ESA and other partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we think about the CLD framework, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s necessarily a lot of science we can do that we haven\u2019t been able to do on the ISS,\u201d she added. But, she added, \u201cwe can tailor much better the science we do on which platform and really optimize them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neuenschwander emphasized that ESA preferred to work with CLDs where European companies are partners. \u201cI would like to see a strong European industry presence\u201d in those stations, he said. \u201cThe European Space Agency will support the projects which have a strong European share into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 The European Space Agency has signed an agreement regarding potential use of a commercial space station…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[888,889,890,891,892,159,893,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-blue-origin","9":"tag-commercial-leo-destinations","10":"tag-esa","11":"tag-orbital-reef","12":"tag-paris-air-show","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-thales-alenia-space","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114718345997411011","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}