Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Shooting Star transport vehicle.
Credit: SNC

The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has been awarded a contract by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to repurpose the company’s Shooting Star transport vehicle as an Unmanned Orbital Outpost – essentially a scalable, autonomous space station for experiments and logistics demonstrations.

DIU is a Department of Defense organization that contracts with commercial companies to solve national security problems.

“The current Shooting Star is already designed with significant capabilities for an orbital outpost and by adding only a few components we are able to meet Department of Defense (DoD) needs.” said former NASA space shuttle commander and retired USAF pilot Steve Lindsey, now senior vice president of strategy for SNC’s Space Systems business area.

Shooting Star attached to Dream Chaser.
Credit: SNC

Core structure

SNC’s Shooting Star transport vehicle serves as the core structure for the proposed design.

Shooting Star is a 16-foot attachment to Dream Chaser developed for NASA Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) missions to provide extra storage for payloads and to facilitate cargo disposal upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. However, the transport vehicle’s unique design also offers free-flyer and satellite capabilities for large payloads with high-power capacity. It can also support logistics services to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and cislunar destinations.

Shooting Star.
Credit: SNC

Future outposts

According to a SNC statement, the proposed orbital outpost will be initially established in low Earth orbit with guidance, navigation and control for sustained free-flight operations to host payloads and support space assembly, microgravity, experimentation, logistics, manufacturing, training, test and evaluation.

Future outposts may be based in a variety of orbits including, medium-Earth orbit, highly elliptical orbit, geosynchronous Earth orbits (GEO) to include GEO transfer orbits, and cislunar orbits.

For more information, go to this Breaking Defense story by Theresa Hitchens: “Sierra Nevada Wins DIU Contract For Experimental Space Station”

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/sierra-nevada-wins-diu-contract-for-experimental-space-station/

Update: In a SpaceNews story from Jeff Foust, he notes that three companies are studying “Orbital Outpost” space station concepts for the Defense Department.

Along with SNC, study monies were also awarded to Nanoracks and Arkisys.

Go to the SpaceNews complete story at:
https://spacenews.com/three-companies-studying-orbital-outpost-space-station-concepts-for-defense-department/