WASHINGTON — Axiom Space is revising the assembly sequence for its commercial space station, a move it says will allow it to get to a free-flying station sooner while addressing NASA’s needs to prepare for the deorbiting of the International Space Station.
The company announced Dec. 18 a revised sequence of modules it will deploy through the end of the decade to assemble its Axiom Station, starting with a Payload Power Thermal Module (PPTM) that will be installed on the ISS.
Axiom originally planned to install a habitat module on the ISS in late 2026, followed by a second habitat module and a research module. Finally, a power and thermal module, with an airlock, would be attached, allowing those modules to undock from the station around the end of the decade to be a free-flying station.
One issue with that approach, Axiom executives said in an interview, is that the company would have installed those modules on a docking port called Node 2 Forward on the ISS under an agreement with NASA in early 2020. That is the port that will later be used by the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), the spacecraft that will provide the final maneuvers to deorbit the station into the South Pacific at the end of its life.
NASA approached Axiom earlier this year to find ways to deconflict USDV from the Axiom modules. One option would have been for the USDV to dock to the Axiom modules. “That potentially presents a risk to Axiom if, for some reason, they had to deorbit and we weren’t ready to separate,” said Mark Greeley, chief operating officer of Axiom Space and program manager for Axiom Station.
The company decided to revise the sequence of the station’s assembly. It will now start with the PPTM, which includes power and thermal systems as well as eight science racks for research payloads. Rather than dock PPTM to Node 2 Forward, it will instead berth to one of two ports currently used by cargo spacecraft like Cygnus.
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