Original subtitles

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Orbit, a unique perspective on the planet.

The permanently manned International Space Station

circles overhead.

It too gives us a unique perspective on

science, health, and industry.

The benefits of manufacturing in zero G

is spurring other countries and private companies

to join this elite club of manned space stations.

(upbeat music)

Low-cost, reusable manned spacecraft

is the key to industrial expansion into space.

Spacex, with its Dragon spacecraft

and Falcon Rocket combination is fulfilling that need,

and other companies will follow.

- It will become possible for people,

and I mean, of course when I see all these,

I've just yesterday seen the Dragon capsule

right in front of me.

We were able to get closer up to the same level,

and I have to say, this is so fascinating.

I really would like to step in and sit down and take off.

It is a dream for many people.

(faintly speaking)

- [Narrator] Currently, the ISS is the only destination.

The station is 23 years old,

and is reaching the limits

of its ability to service other industrial needs.

However, it is imperative to keep the research inside sky.

- Because we do so much work on the space station,

research, experiments that really help humanity,

but also give us a different view of our planet.

And at the end, we want to protect our planet,

and our astronauts are really giving us messages back,

which is quite unique and quite nice.

- When we look at the science

that's done in the Space Station,

it's benefited us on Earth in a lot of different ways.

And I think one is a very basic way,

in that it's given the opportunity to scientists

throughout the world

to think about science in a different way.

When we think about life as we know it,

one fundamental property of all life has been gravity.

And one of the first things scientists do is they think,

"Hmm, what happens if we take gravity away?"

And on the International Space Station,

we're allowed to do experiments that study just that

for long periods of time.

So we can study the effect of gravity on things, on people,

and then sometimes we can combine that

with the effects of radiation.

We can also look at...

When we think about future space missions,

we know that it's gonna take a while to get to Mars.

It's gonna take some time to get farther.

So the International Space Station

has given us an opportunity to see

what happens when humans are in a space environment,

or in a microgravity environment,

where they're in free fall for long periods of time.

And this is really important.

So we understand the effect

of the lack of gravity on humans.

We also understand what it's like

to be confined in a small environment

for long periods of time.

And we're starting to understand

just the kind of technology we need

in order to create safe travel for humans,

and also to address some of the challenges

and robotic missions far from Earth.

- [Narrator] The most recent addition to the ISS,

a Russian segment with a European robotic arm,

will help alleviate the stretched resources

and capabilities of the station.

- The ERA arm is completely symmetrical.

This means that it has a handle and End Effector

at both sides, and that each side

can serve as the tip as well as the shoulder.

So it means that if you have multiple base points

on the Russian segment,

you can go from one base point to the other,

then release your tip or your shoulder,

which becomes tip, and then manipulate a payload.

So in that sense,

it has freedom of motion on the space station.

- The robotic arm can be used for, for example,

take payloads out of an airlock autonomously

without the risk of an extra vehicle activity,

for example, and put equipment on the outside.

It can be used for inspection.

It can be used for putting big new modules, for example,

and putting it on the space station,

move big things around.

And also it can be used to help the cosmonauts

when they're doing spacewalk,

to move cosmonauts around or big payouts

while the astronauts and cosmonauts

have their hands free to work on the outside.

So it can be used in several ways.

- When we operate the ERA on the ISS,

we are obviously going to learn a lot about

how to use robots in space,

how the robots work in space.

We'll have feedback to our engineering process

if we'll finally know what is the performance

during its use in space.

We also learn on what we can best do with robots,

what we can best do with people,

and learn about the cooperation.

And all of that is going to be very, very useful

when we would go further into the universe,

and still have for sure robots initially,

but maybe at some point in time also people with robots.

So we're really looking forward to

all what we can learn

from the experience on the ISS with ERA.

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- [Narrator] Another addition to the station,

delivered by a SpaceX cargo module,

is a commercially funded Bishop Airlock module.

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Operated by robotic arms,

the commercial airlock allows easy transfer of payloads

from within the station to outside

for external deployment, and to launch CubeSats,

which is a burgeoning operational requirement.

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This will allow for more commercial payload throughput

for industrial applications.

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- One issue that some European scientists worked on

is that, first of all, we know that astronauts,

after they've been in space for a long time,

it's like their sense of taste changes a bit.

And the longer they're up there,

the more they crave spicier foods or saltier foods,

so they start adding more salt to their meals.

Well, one of the things that happens

as they increase their salt ingestion,

is that it changes the pH of their blood.

It makes it a little bit more acid.

Not a lot, but just a little bit.

And so the body adapts to this acidity

by trying to raise the pH just a little bit,

by providing calcium that comes from our bones.

So they actually have increased dissolving of the bones

to get that calcium, to bring that pH up.

But at the same time, we're also seeing that

because they don't use their bones very much,

because in a microgravity environment,

you don't have to fight gravity and stand up straight,

that they're already experiencing some bone loss.

So we're starting to see that...

Because of this, we're starting to see that

this change of taste

results in an increase in salt consumption,

that can actually speed the bone loss in space.

So here we're seeing two different effects.

And we know here on Earth,

we now know that perhaps the salt...

Increased salt consumption

isn't just a cardiovascular effect,

but it could perhaps contribute to

bone loss and osteoporosis in humans here on earth.

And we didn't really see that effect until we went to space.

The International Space Station provides a platform

that we have humans that act as subjects,

but also operators of science.

And it's also the only platform that we've had

where scientists have the opportunity to do an experiment,

see the results,

and come back and prepare another experiment.

And if something doesn't work, or if there's...

They have a second opportunity.

And unfortunately, we don't see that with other missions.

- What is next?

We have now just a bit more than 20 years of ISS operation,

very successful and really incredible

science and experiments that have been conducted.

And we still learn every single day new things there.

And this is really good.

So what's next?

What will happen is for sure that

by the end of this decade,

we will have commercial space stations up there.

There are about four projects in the planning

today in the US, and the question is,

does Europe participate there?

Does Europe have its own independent solution?

And this is a big question that we need to address.

But yes the space station as we know it today,

at the end of this decade, will not exist anymore,

and will be replaced by some commercial stations.

And this is a big change,

and Europe needs to be active and show leadership

in making this change and really be part of it

in this next era, which will come at the end of this decade.

- [Narrator] Two commercial projects are well underway,

to develop commercial stations for industry and tourism.

Axiom Space are developing their station

to be assembled in four modules,

whilst attached to the ISS.

The fourth module will allow the station

to deploy its own solar panels,

and become independent from the ISS.

Eventually, Axiom Station will detach

and orbit independently from the ISS.

(gentle music)

- Hi, I'm Gerard Valle, and I'm the structures mechanism,

the Softgoods lead for Sierra Space LIFE Habitat.

We're really just testing the structural restraint layer,

which is what carries the load,

and it's one third the size of a LIFE Habitat.

So the restraint layer

is made up of a material called Vectran.

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Vectran is an extremely high strength material,

performs really well in this application.

It gets us the best performance

while maximizing the livable volume inside the habitat.

Pretty amazing.

- [Narrator] Sierra Space has been successful

in developing their inflatable modules,

and are also developing their own spacecraft,

the Dream Chaser,

to service the station called Orbital Reef.

(gentle music)

First developed in (indistinct),

is a crude reusable space plane in 2013.

The Dream Chaser was not selected by NASA

in their commercial crew program.

However, Sierra Space persisted

with an unmanned cargo version,

and have built three so far.

The design of the lifting body was derived from

an earlier canceled NASA project, HL-20 space plane,

a concept from earlier lifting body designs

like the X-24 and HL-10.

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To be launched conventionally

on a Vulcan Centaur or Arianespace rocket,

and to fly back to earth and land on a runway

like the space shuttle,

the craft will be powered with a vortex engine

burning propane and nitrous oxide.

It will be able to carry 5,000 kilograms of payload

to the orbital reef,

and eventually a crude version

will be capable of delivering

between three to seven crew well-paying tourists.

(gentle music)

One growing problem,

yet to be resolved for these new stations

and other orbital assets is space debris.

- At the moment, the most known encounters

are between active satellites and space debris.

An example of certain event happened in 2009,

where we had a collision

between an active telecommunication satellite, Iridium,

with an inactive space debris satellite, Cosmos.

So this collision actually resulted in

thousands of fragments, and many of them are still in orbit.

- [Narrator] The danger of space junk

destroying operational satellites,

and even manned spacecraft is a growing concern.

(gentle music)

- Space debris is the result of our activities in space.

So we have no longer functioning satellites,

and we have spent outer stages and the fragments.

And in total we know of about 28,000 objects

that we can track, that needs follow-up from ground.

We know about of 900,000 objects

that are larger than a centimeter.

And we know of about 128 million of objects

larger than a millimeter.

And that shows that the largest contribution in numbers

are these small fragments.

And unfortunately, collisions and explosions

are forecast to continue in space,

and that means the population will still grow.

- We are launching more and more.

In the past, it was only the big space nations,

if we call it that way, that were launching.

But now, space has been opened up

to commercial activities,

and therefore we see more and more satellites

being launched.

Is this an issue for space debris?

I would like to say no, if people behave properly.

So if we really manage in a proper way,

the end of life of the satellite,

it's not going to be an issue.

The point is,

will we manage those satellite in a proper way?

Yes or no?

And we see that there is a tendency

still to disregard how...

"What do I do with my satellite once it reach end of life?"

And not consider it since the very beginning.

Situation that has improved a lot in the past 10 years,

but we still have to do some teaching

on how important it is to be considered

since the very beginning of the design of a project.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] Several concepts are in play

to remove this orbital debris.

For the larger objects,

capturing them with spacecraft with arms or grapples,

then performing a de-orbit burn,

dragging the debris down to burn up in the atmosphere.

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There is another resource available in orbit, sunlight.

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Why not capture it with solar cells,

and beam the electricity down to earth?

Massive solar farms,

comprising of many small mass produced solar satellites,

launched into orbit on low cost reusable rockets.

Assemble together in orbit

using advanced robotic techniques, and once completed,

these satellites will collect

the full power of the sun's energy 24 hours a day,

seven days a week,

and beam it wirelessly down to earth to receiver stations,

which will turn it back into electricity

and deliver it to the grid.

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Space-Based solar power, continuously available,

inexhaustible and sustainable,

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a scalable energy source

that could help meet the world's clean energy goals.

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