Infrastructure Systems

Privately-built and operated space stations intended to succeed the ISS as destinations in low Earth orbit — for research, manufacturing, and tourism. Axiom Station is being assembled to begin attached to the ISS before flying free.

Keeping cryogenic propellants — liquid hydrogen and oxygen — cold enough not to boil away over long missions. Cryogenic fluid management is a key enabling technology for depots and for deep-space transfer stages.

Habitats that launch compact and expand in space, giving far more volume per kilogram than rigid modules. The Genesis demonstrators and the BEAM module on the ISS have proven the concept in orbit.

A sustained human outpost on the Moon — habitats, power, and ISRU plants supporting long stays — the surface counterpart of the Gateway station, and a proving ground for the technologies of a Mars base.

An electromagnetic catapult that accelerates payloads to high speed along a track — proposed especially on the Moon, where the low gravity and airlessness would let a mass driver launch mined material into space without rockets.

Transferring propellant between spacecraft in orbit, so a vehicle can be refuelled rather than replaced. Refuelling a large in-space stage is central to plans for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.

An orbiting fuel station that stores propellant so spacecraft can refuel in space. A depot would let missions launch 'dry' and top up on orbit, breaking the tyranny of carrying all their propellant from the ground.

Cargo spacecraft that resupply stations and return payloads, increasingly designed to be reused. Commercial cargo vehicles routinely deliver supplies to the ISS, and reusable capsules now return and fly again.

A large satellite that collects sunlight in orbit — where the Sun always shines — and beams the energy to receivers on the ground as microwaves. Small-scale power-beaming has been demonstrated; a full system remains a concept.

A cable anchored to the ground and reaching beyond geostationary orbit, up which vehicles would climb to space without rockets. It remains theoretical: no known material has the strength-to-weight needed to build the tether on Earth.

A reusable vehicle that moves other spacecraft between orbits — delivering satellites to their final orbit, boosting or de-orbiting them, and ferrying cargo — a workhorse of an in-space transport network.

Compact nuclear reactors to power a Moon or Mars base through the long lunar night and the dim Martian winter, when solar power is not enough. NASA's KRUSTY test demonstrated the underlying Kilopower reactor technology on the ground.