The ISS is aging and the Biden administration itself has pledged to keep the glorious space station in operation at least until 2030. By then, NASA aims to have already completed the transition to at least one privately owned space station. If everything goes according to plan, the decommissioned and empty ISS will push into the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate as it plummets towards the ocean. To date there is no shortage of problems, cracks have appeared on a Russian module, another section has suffered air leaks. In recent years, the station has also experienced toilet failures, mysterious temperature variations and a failure of the oxygen supply system. On the path that will then lead tofinal turnaround, NASA reported that Orbital Reef has passed four milestones for some of its most crucial technologiesincluding a system to recycle the urine of future astronauts and tourists.
The stages involved overcoming a series of tests on the Orbital Reef regenerative system. This system will provide clean air and drinking water for humans aboard the space station.
Some of the tests included the system's ability to remove impurities from the air, recover urine for recycling, and maintain a reservoir of waterNASA reported.
The ISS has a similar system that recycles water and oxygen from, as NASA calls it, “normal human activities” – that is, mainly breathing, sweating and urinating. True, the system turns urine into drinking water.
Turning urine into water helps reduce the amount of water NASA would have to launch into space to keep astronauts alive, thus reducing launch costs and saving money. NASA awarded Blue Origin and Sierra Space US$172 million as part of its goal to develop commercialized and US-led space stations in low-Earth orbit which could replace the ISS after its retirement.
NASA is outsourcing the next generation of space stations to commercial companies because it has bigger priorities that need funding. Currently, maintaining the ISS program costs NASA about $3 billion per year. “The agency is committed to continuing to work with industry with the goal of having one or more stations in orbit to ensure competition, reduce costs and meet demand from NASA and other customers,” Hart said in a NASA statement in January.
Without the ISS, this will free up NASA's budget to focus its efforts on establishing a permanent human presence on the moon, including a space station in lunar orbit and a base on the lunar surface, via its Artemis missions.
“Overall, we projected that Artemis' total costs will reach $93 billion between 2012 and 2025,” NASA Acting Inspector General George Scott said during a government hearing in January, adding that this did not include the cost of the launches, which will be approximately $4.2 billion per launch for the first four Artemis missions.
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