Two Starlab Demo Missions Announced
Two Starlab Demo Missions Announced
Essential Technologies for Private Space Station to be Evaluated
As part of its Space Act Agreement with NASA, Voyager Space has announced demonstration missions for an alternative urine processor (AUP) and a free-space optical (FSO) link. These demonstrations are critical in validating capabilities needed for Starlab.
Reliable access to potable water is essential for human life no matter where you live. On a daily basis, humans require more water by weight for drinking, cooking, and cleaning than oxygen and food combined. Starlab is expected to supply over 15,435 lb of potable water annually to support crew, science, and station operations. As a result, the Starlab program team has mandated that at least 90% of the wastewater generated on the space station will be purified and recycled to reduce the cost of transporting water from Earth. This in turn requires that urine (and toilet flush water), which comprises over one-third of the metabolic wastewater produced by the crew, be recycled as well.
Given the extremely limited availability of space-rated urine processors (only NASA and the Russian Space Agency have operated them to date), the Starlab team has initiated maturation and ground testing of a full-scale alternative urine processor to drive down cost and technical implementation risk and to leverage increased options in the marketplace for this essential technology. The AUP test article will be supplied by Paragon Space Development Corporation and the test campaign will be performed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama under realistic operating conditions.
In addition to the water purification system, Voyager Space is developing an optical communications space terminal to be mounted on the Bishop Airlock, the first commercial module attached to the International Space Station (ISS). This technology will serve to establish a high-bandwidth optical communications link between a ground terminal and the flight terminal on the ISS in the absence of accurate attitude knowledge and quantify optical link performance over a range of atmospheric conditions.
This type of high-bandwidth optical communications, supported by Edge computing and AI, is a critical technology needed to support multiple Starlab activities. Data is one of the most valuable research products of Starlab itself, and advanced research is data intensive, requiring demanding communications, high resolution video downlink, and more. Additionally, it’s important that researchers can access and control their payloads from the ground, another driver for high-bandwidth optical communications.
Voyager Space is planning, with NASA, to conduct testing from the ISS to ground to demonstrate a capability needed for Starlab’s primary market. The goal is to drive down Starlab’s communications cost, performance, and reliability risks. The anticipated result will also allow for higher data rates and more energy efficient communications compared to that of the traditional radio frequency communication systems.