Industry says proposed NASA changes to commercial space station plans create confusion

WASHINGTON — NASA's proposed changes to its support of commercial space stations have created concern and confusion among companies developing them, the head of an industry organization warned.

In March 25 testimony at a hearing of the House Science Committee's space subcommittee, Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Space Federation, opposed a potential revamp of NASA's plans to shift from the International Space Station to commercial stations announced the day before.

At NASA's "Ignition" event March 24, NASA announced it was considering an alternative approach to what it calls commercial low Earth orbit destinations, or CLDs. Under that new approach, NASA would procure a core module from industry that would be installed on the ISS, to which additional commercial modules could be added. That would form the basis of a commercial station, or stations, that would detach from the ISS.