The U.S. and its allies are facing a deadline in space – the International Space Station will be taken out of orbit in January 2031, so the four companies planning to build commercial replacements must have their stations in operation by then to avoid a gap between them.

The stakes are high, said Brent Sherwood, a top executive with Blue Origin, which is a partner with Broomfield-based Sierra Space in Orbital Reef, one of the four planned commercial stations. Failure to replace the current station would give China the only presence in low-Earth orbit, a region of space below 1,200 miles above the Earth where scientists perform experiments, observation and manufacturing through 3D printing.

Blue Origin and Sierra Space “hope to be up and operating two years before the ISS reaches (its) end of life and avoid a gap,” Sherwood said. “The reason that it is so important to avoid a gap is that during the previous gap (before the ISS began operating in 2000) – eight years – we were able to buy access from a partner. Now we don’t have a partner, just an adversary. I hope we don’t abandon LEO (low-Earth orbit) for human spaceflight and habitation.”

Sherwood, Blue Origin’s director of advanced programs development, made his comments during a panel discussion on commercial stations Wednesday at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort during a part of the Space Symposium focused on change in the space industry.

Another panel member, Mike Gold, chief growth officer of commercial space company Redwire, echoed and amplified Sherwood’s warning about the danger of not having a replacement for the ISS ready before it is scheduled to stop operating.

“America can’t cede LEO to China. That’s what we are in danger of today and we have been through that with the launch gap (when NASA and private space players had to use rockets from Russia and other nations to reach space),” Gold said. “It is a geopolitical issue. If we can’t offer these LEO seats (on commercial stations), we will be sending customers to China. The national security implications of failing at Artemis (NASA’s mission to return to the moon) or LEO would be huge.”

Getting commercial stations built and operating by then is a “tough bet,” Sherwood said, since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration doesn’t have a lot of money to help private companies with the huge upfront engineering and other costs to meet the looming deadline.

While the agency signed contracts in 2021 with Orbital Reef, Northrop Grumman and Nanoracks (now called Voyager Space) totaling $415.6 million to develop commercial stations, and gave Axiom Space to build modules for the ISS that will later be used in its own station, fewer companies are expected to get a second round of contracts later in this decade to continue development.

“Investors are spooked by uncertainty and this (project) is filled with uncertainty. There needs to be a very special investor to put money into this and that set is pretty small. Moving humanity into space in a long game,” Sherwood said.

Each of the four companies are planning stations that would be far more than the platform for scientific experiments that the ISS has been. Orbital Reef calls its station a business park in space that could be used for zero-gravity manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, electronic components and artificial body parts as well as to host space tourists and scientists. Some will include inflatable components, and most are expected to be built for future expansion.

“We are building future infrastructure for millions of people to live and work in space for the benefit of mankind,” Sherwood said. “We are building a mixed-use business park and providing common infrastructure” for future tenants.

Tejpaul Bhatia, chief revenue officer of Axiom Space, said he doesn’t yet believe there is a market for commercial space stations, but added that all four companies are “racing to figure out if there is demand there. If we (generate) so much value up there, cost will become irrelevant.”