The ISS is due to retire in 2030. NASA now wants private companies to build its replacement, with bids due Dec. 8 and up to $34 billion on the table.
NASA has asked US companies to build the space stations that will replace the International Space Station, which is due to retire in 2030. Its final request for proposals asks firms to design, build, certify and run stations in low Earth orbit where NASA astronauts can live and work.
Axiom Space, Vast and Voyager's Starlab are expected to bid. SpaceX probably will not. The stakes are high: government auditors have warned the US could face a gap in its human presence in orbit if the new stations are not ready when the ISS ends.
NASA has no plans to build another space station of its own. Instead, it is asking American companies to do it. The agency has released its final request for proposals for commercial space stations, a 360-page document that spells out what a private successor to the International Space Station (ISS) must do, with bids due on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
This matters even if you never plan to leave the ground. The ISS has hosted astronauts from around the world for more than two decades and serves as a test bed for experiments that need near-weightless conditions. It is scheduled to retire in 2030. If private stations are not ready in time, the US could lose its permanent human presence in orbit, and NASA’s own auditors have warned that risk is real.
NASA wants companies to design, build, test, certify and operate stations in low Earth orbit, the region close to Earth where the ISS circles about 260 miles up. Those stations must provide complete services for human spaceflight, so NASA astronauts can live and work aboard them.
One big change from the July draft helps bidders. NASA now says it will arrange the flights that carry crew and cargo to the new stations, at least at first, so companies do not have to sort out transportation themselves.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman framed the effort as a promise to stay in orbit. He said the agency will never give up its presence in low Earth orbit and still needs a place to do research, test technology, train crews and prepare for the Moon and Mars. He also warned that the business case has to add up, and said NASA wants companies willing to invest their own money and find customers beyond the agency.
NASA plans to sign firm-fixed-price contracts, meaning companies get an agreed price and cover any overruns themselves. They are also multi-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts, which work like master agreements: NASA orders work as it needs it, with no guaranteed volume beyond a minimum.
NASA expects to choose two or more companies for early development. A later competition will then narrow the field to one or more firms that finish the design, test and certify their stations, and start selling services to NASA.
Axiom Space, Vast and Voyager are all but certain to bid. Each is already well along:
Blue Origin, which is working with Sierra Space on a station called Orbital Reef, won an earlier round of NASA funding, but questions remain about how committed it is. SpaceX looks unlikely to bid, at least for now.
There is a Canadian angle too. MDA Space owns a stake in Starlab, and its robotic arm is part of that design. MDA is also supplying technology derived from Canadarm3 to Axiom for its station. The Canadian Space Agency says it will study how to keep Canadian astronauts and research in orbit after the ISS, since federal support for Canada’s current role runs through 2030.
NASA took a winding road to get here. It funded three station concepts in 2021, then in August 2025 dropped its contract plan in favor of funded Space Act Agreements, a looser partnership model. In March of this year it floated a government-owned core module attached to the ISS, and said it could not afford two commercial stations. The industry pushed back, and by June NASA returned to its original plan of full competition for contracts.
Meanwhile, the clock keeps running. The Government Accountability Office warned in June that NASA risks a gap in continuous human presence in orbit and has not studied how likely or long it might be. A Senate committee has approved a bill that would extend ISS operations to September 2032, but it is not law. Transport is another worry: SpaceX plans to retire its Dragon capsule around 2030, and Boeing’s Starliner may not fly astronauts again until 2028.
For most people, the effects will be indirect but real. Research in orbit relies on near-weightless conditions you cannot recreate on the ground, and stations are where crews prepare for missions to the Moon and Mars. A private station market could mean more frequent access for universities and companies, not just space agencies, and more seats for paying customers.
It also shifts risk from taxpayers to companies. If the stations work, NASA becomes one customer among many and can spend more on deep-space exploration. If they run late, the US could be left without a crewed outpost in orbit after the ISS is gone.
Bidders had until Oct. 21 to submit questions, after an online pre-proposal conference on Oct. 15 and one-on-one sessions in Houston on Oct. 16. Proposals are due Dec. 8. NASA expects to announce awards in spring 2027, and its cover letter names April 15 as the target date.
Private companies. NASA plans to buy services from commercial stations rather than build its own, and expects to pick two or more companies in spring 2027.
The ISS is scheduled to retire in 2030, when SpaceX will steer it into a controlled reentry over a remote part of the ocean.
Each winner of this phase is guaranteed at least $100 million, and the contracts allow NASA to order up to about $34 billion in total.
You're reading the quick version.
Read next
Ondřej Surý: the unpaid volunteer who rushed PHP’s fix to the web
When two critical PHP flaws put most websites at risk, the fix reached millions of servers through one Czech engineer's spare-time project. Here's why that matters.
RIKEN scientists ran five silicon qubits at once on one shared control wire without losing accuracy, fixing a problem that has held chip-style quantum computers back.
On Europe's first exascale supercomputer, Nvidia modeled an error-correcting quantum processor in record detail. Here's why faking a quantum computer on ordinary chips matters.
Japan's MMX spacecraft is headed to Mars to scoop up part of its largest moon and fly it back to Earth by 2031. Here's the plan.
The Daily Brief
Every morning, the news that matters from AI, phones, apps and the people shaping tech. Explained in plain English. Free.
One email a day. No spam, unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy
