Blue Origin’s Challenge With The Orbital Reef Space Station
Orbital Reef is a commercially developed, owned, and operated space station led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Not only is Orbital Reef trying to fill the vacuum of demand that will be left after the ISS is retired, but it also has more commercial/business plans as well. Over one year ago the companies received some significant funding from NASA for this project.
Now in early 2023, they are continuing to work as fast as possible to reach operational status in the second half of this decade. It’s important to point out that a few individual projects will make up this station and will determine its success and timeline. These projects include New Glenn, the Dream Chaser spaceplane, and the LIFE Habitat.
However, with so many different pieces, it brings up the question of what progress has been made and what options if any are there if one of them doesn’t go to plan. Not to mention Orbital Reef is also made up of an additional four companies all with their respective contributions. Here I will go more in-depth into the projects that Orbital Reef relies on, the goal of this new commercial station, what to expect in the future, and more.
Blue Origin’s Challenge
When Orbital Reef was announced, they released information on the different companies involved and exactly what they are responsible for. Starting with Blue Origin, who is expected to lead development of the station’s infrastructure, large-diameter metal modules, lastmile space tug, and the reusable heavy-lift New Glenn launch system. Pretty much everything on that list is extremely important if not necessary to the station’s future operation.
Looking at New Glenn first, this heavy lift launch vehicle has been under development for years and is approaching its first launch. Some of the most recent estimates and information from various sources indicate a realistic date would be in 2025. Once operational, New Glenn would ferry the metal modules, LIFE Habitats, and other large infrastructure for the station. What’s interesting is that due to the size of the main modules of Orbital Reef, New Glenn might be one of the only launch vehicles with the payload capacity to carry them. In the various animations and renders of the Orbital Reef station, you can see the massive LIFE Habitat sections side by side with the metal modules that are not much smaller.
LIFE when fully inflated measures 27 feet by 27 feet or 8.2 by 8.2 meters. Just based on the comparison between the two, the large metal modules look to be around 6 meters in diameter and very long. Other rockets such as ULA’s Vulcan or even the Falcon Heavy don’t have that big of a payload fairing. This means that if in a few years from now everything is ready for Orbital Reef but New Glenn is still being worked on, a replacement vehicle might not be available. This added responsibility of New Glenn creates more risk due to the fact that New Glenn is an extremely ambitious rocket that could easily be delayed multiple years based on initial test results and more.
There also is a lot on Blue Origin’s plate for this project. They will not only need to get New Glenn up and running but also create multiple modern space station segments, the general infrastructure, and even a space tug. Right now in the middle of March, we are getting very close to the first launch of Vulcan. This will give Blue Origin some invaluable information on the BE-4 engine which will directly apply to New Glenn and its upcoming testing. In addition, with Vulcan launch cadence expected to significantly increase and New Glenn only getting closer to actual attempts, BE-4 production will need to increase rapidly. Not long ago the company reported that dozens of these engines are now in production to support a large and growing demand for civil, commercial, and defense launches.
In terms of actual station progress, the most recent update came in August of last year when they completed the System Definition Review (SDR) with NASA. The SDR is an important program milestone to establish the functional baseline for Orbital Reef. It demonstrates to NASA that the space station design is feasible and achievable while validating that the Orbital Reef system is on-track to proceed into the design phase. Something we will keep an eye on as time goes on.
Sierra Space’s Addition
While Blue Origin has a lot of work for this station, they are not the only ones. However, on the bright side, Sierra Space seems to have quite a bit more progress done on its responsibilities. Sierra Space leads the development of the LIFE Habitat (Large Integrated Flexible Environment), small diameter metal node modules, and the Dream Chaser spaceplane for crew and cargo transportation to and from the station.
The Dream Chaser spaceplane is a multi-mission vehicle capable of supporting a variety of LEO needs. It can be customized for both domestic and international customers via vehicle configuration, launch site, destination, landing site, duration, and a host of other variables. Dream Chaser was originally designed as a crewed spaceplane, in part under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to and from the space station and other low Earth orbit (LEO) destinations. Dream Chaser is 30 feet, or 9 meters long—roughly ¼ the total length of the space shuttle orbiters.
Its first uncrewed test flight is scheduled for the third quarter of this year. This obviously is a big deal and if successful, will help jump the company toward crewed test flights in the future. With a space station comes the need for constant services. Whether this be bringing people to the station, taking them back down the Earth, or just disposing of trash, a reliable spacecraft is necessary. Based on the timeline of Orbital Reef, it’s extremely likely that the uncrewed variant will be up and ready well before it’s needed. The crewed variant on the other hand may be cutting it close. Either way, unlike New Glenn, there are plenty of alternatives that could be relied upon to move people to and from the station. For example, even Boeing is apart of the Orbital Reef team and will offer Starliner as a service.
In addition to Dream Chaser, the other main contribution from Sierra Space is the LIFE Habitat. As partially mentioned before these modules are very big. The LIFE habitat launches on a conventional rocket and inflates on-orbit to a large structure that is three stories tall, and 27 feet in diameter. The inside consists of three floors outfitted with everything a crew of four astronauts would need to live in space and perform science missions. This includes science labs, robotics work stations, medical and sick bay, sleep and hygiene quarters, galley, exercise equipment, Sierra Space’s Astro Garden plant growth system and ample storage room for crew supplies.
In total, the habitat is currently being designed to support four crew members living and working on long-duration missions, such as those to Mars. It comfortably houses six for missions in LEO, but can accommodate 12 crew for shorter periods of time such as those during which crew members transition. Because of its modular nature, additional habitats can be joined to each other to accommodate more crew, or for a variety of other purposes.
In the past couple of months, we have watched multiple ultimate burst pressure tests of a scaled down version. Most recently in January, they completed a third stress test – this time for duration – exceeding NASA certification requirements and demonstrating the inflatable structure’s integrity for sustaining human life in space for long periods of time. This latest assessment, called an Accelerated Systematic Creep Test, is a destructive materials testing method by which test engineers load the test unit – a subscale version of the inflatable habitat – with a sustained amount of pressure over time until it fails. The unit’s “softgoods” pressure shell burst after over 150 hours, exceeding NASA’s short-term, recommended creep duration target of 100 hours. High-strength softgoods materials are sewn and woven fabrics – primarily Vectran – that become rigid structures when pressurized and can provide safe and sustainable architecture for space habitation.
The company will conduct a second subscale Systematic Accelerated Creep Test early in 2023. Stress tests on full-scale LIFE™ Habitat units will begin later in the year as part of Sierra Space’s ongoing softgoods certification process. With this in mind, the LIFE Habitat should be ready well before its needed for Orbital Reef.
They point out that Orbital Reef is trying to unlock LEO by reducing cost and complexity for new kinds of customers. They will provide end-to-end services, standard interfaces, and technical support needed by space flight novices: planning, payload development, training, transportation, data analysis, and security for people or payloads (or both). Orbital Reef is meant to provide everything researchers need for fundamental science and applications development: experiment accommodations inside and outside; a spacious laboratory equipped with next-generation shared facilities; technician time; and proprietary provisions, even dedicated, closed-hatch modules. Whether for physical, biological, or Earth science, for new product development, or for testing exploration systems, Orbital Reef will have it.
Conclusion
Orbital Reef is a next generation space station in LEO being worked on by a host of different companies. With a goal for the station to be operational in the next couple of years, they have a lot of work ahead of them. While some projects are almost ready right now, others will cut it close to the goal and timeline of this project. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.