Space is becoming more commercial and strategic than ever

The scheduled end of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2030 also marks that of a quarter of a century of borderless cooperation in a field, space, which has become essential to the daily life of earthlings and a field of national issues. “This is indeed a very interesting moment in the evolution of exploration,” said Lionel Suchet, deputy director general of the National Center for Space Studies (CNES), to AFP.

This polytechnician, former head of the space division within CNES from 1996 to 2004, coordinated numerous projects during the first years of the ISS, just after witnessing from the front row the deorbiting of the Mir station, the Russian ancestor of the international station, in 2001.

“The history of human spaceflight is first and foremost the space race. The Russians have set out on a route of long-term flights, with stations. Americans on short flights to the Moon. It was two separate paths, and a logic of competition. One of the positive points of the ISS is that we have built a cooperation program, the only one still today,” he emphasizes.

“The ISS is a cathedral dedicated to human cooperation and collaboration beyond borders, languages ​​and cultures,” says AFP John Horack, former director of the scientific branch and mission systems within NASA.

“For over 25 years we have had people in space, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This proves that we can find solutions rather than fight when we want to interact with each other,” insists the man who occupies the Neil Armstrong chair of aerospace policy at Ohio State University.

But time passes, and the equipment ages. In the summer of 2024, NASA announced that it had chosen Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a module capable of pushing the International Space Station back towards the Earth’s atmosphere, thus allowing it to be destroyed after its retirement in 2030.

“This module will slow down the ISS, and allow it a precise re-entry above the Pacific Ocean, far from land, populations and any other potential danger. Several notable large spacecraft, including Mir and the Gamma Ray Observatory, have been deorbited in this manner, although the ISS is much larger than the latter two,” explains John Horack.

After 2030, China, with its Tiangong station, will remain the only nation with such infrastructure in low orbit. The United States is banking on private space stations, which could accommodate NASA astronauts as well as other clients.

“We are entering an era where space stations – like launchers, satellites – will have a much more commercial dimension,” believes John Horack. “They will be built and operated by private companies – often globally collaborating companies – whose customers will be national space agencies, space programs etc.”

Several American companies are already working on these projects, including Axiom Space and Blue Origin. Just like European companies. But “the business model will still be largely institutional because we know that countries always have an interest in sending astronauts into low orbit,” says Lionel Suchet.

There also remains the question of science and exploration, “an objective of all humanity” for Lionel Suchet, who recalls that there are treaties on non-appropriation and the use of space. “But in fact, when a country creates its lunar base, it will appropriate the land because we are not going to create another lunar base in the same place.”

For John Horack, “an era is ending. We must grow as human beings in our ability to travel in space, and in the use of space in order to improve the social, economic, educational and quality of life of everyone, everywhere in the world,” he concludes, quoting former director of the European Space Agency Jean-Jacques Dordain: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, let’s go together.”