r/spaceflight 18d ago

Axiom's private space station is coming sooner than we thought

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/axioms-private-space-station-is-coming-sooner-than-we-thought
69 Upvotes

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u/Isnotanumber 17d ago

Semi-random thought. Is it really necessary to send part of this to ISS first? And if so, can its orbit be modified significantly once it becomes a free flying vehicle. As I recall, the orbit for ISS was dictated to give Russians access, and while doable from KSC it kinda sucks. Limits the windows to launch, made the amount payload deliverable a little more limited. At least for Shuttle. Why not just optimize it for launches from the US? Is there a hope of keeping Russia as a partner?

12

u/mfb- 17d ago

The payload increase with a lower inclination orbit isn't that large. Launching to the ISS inclination leads to a launch trajectory that follows the US coast, which is nice for launch abort scenarios.

3

u/Isnotanumber 17d ago

So were the issues of the orbit ISS ended up in versus Space Station Freedom (which a lot of the US ISS segments were planned for) more a matter of just (frustratingly) updating the weights of everything, to revise where shuttle had to get the pieces of ISS to?

9

u/mfb- 17d ago

The Shuttle was so heavy that it was very sensitive to smaller differences in delta_v. That's not a typical condition for launch vehicles.