Public-Private Sponsorship
Media Credit: NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS IN SPACE
Public-private partnerships are a key component to driving innovation and national leadership. With the potential to address a wide array of modern challenges from technology development to infrastructure modernization, and from education to the economic development of space, public-private partnerships unlock new possibilities unavailable when we rely solely on public or private investment.
The International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) National laboratory is a great example of a public-private partnership model that is working in space. The ISS National Lab opens up the incredible possibilities of the space station research environment to a diverse range of researchers, entrepreneurs, and innovators that could create entirely new markets in space.
The ISS National Laboratory – Enabling Utilization of the ISS
The ISS offers a unique research and development platform, unlike any on Earth, enabling research that benefits both exploration and life on Earth. To conduct the research opportunities this unparalleled platform provides to the nation, the ISS United States Orbital Segment, through bipartisan legislation, was designated as a U.S. National Laboratory in 2005, enabling research and development access to a broad range of commercial, academic, and government users.
As the demand for space research and development projects increases, the supply of access to space and research and development facilities will evolve. In space, private-sector commercial research and development facility operators are at the forefront of a new era of space research on the ISS and future space platforms. These organizations operate their facilities internally and externally on the ISS. They provide users with more choices to address unique research needs and are the pathfinders for a marketplace in low Earth orbit(Abbreviation: LEO) The orbit around the Earth that extends up to an altitude of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) from Earth’s surface. The International Space Station’s orbit is in LEO, at an altitude of approximately 250 miles..
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space™ manages the ISS National Lab, under a cooperative agreement with NASA, facilitating access to its permanent microgravity research environment, a powerful vantage point in low Earth orbit, and the extreme and varied conditions of space. After final assembly of the ISS in 2011, CASIS, a nonprofit organization, was selected by NASA to manage the ISS National Lab.
Sponsored Programs – Accelerating Third-Party Funding for Space Research
The ISS National Lab has developed a successful Sponsored Program model that attracts third-party funding from private industry and other government agencies to solve big problems or address target challenges. These programs translate into projects on the ISS National Lab. The Sponsored Program model enables an organization to ask new questions and explore key variables, using the ISS National Lab environment as a tool in their innovation portfolio. In return, the organization creates opportunities for targeted research and development projects and STEM education projects or fosters novel ideas of startup companies. Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and regional incubators have successfully used the ISS National Lab Sponsored Program model. This unique research and development model is flexible to meet the needs and budget of a partnering organization. Successful Sponsored Programs include Boeing Mass Challenge, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, National Science Foundation (NSF) fluid dynamics and combustion Sponsored Program, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) organ-on-chip technologies Sponsored Program. Additional Sponsored Programs totaling close to $5 million in 2017 with Fortune 500 organizations are imminent and will target major challenges to humankind as well as STEM education initiatives.
Pathways for Space R&D Public-Private Partnerships
Much of the ISS National Lab portfolio consists of organizations operating space commercial activities. Commercial Service Providers (the subset of Implementation Partners that own and operate facilities on the ISS or are developing future facilities) and ISS National Lab commercial facilities. The definition of an ISS National Lab commercial facility includes launch-on-demand facilities due to a significant increase in their utilization. Demand for space projects is being seen in the following areas:
- Better targeting and quick-to-fail models in drug development that can lead to breakthroughs in curing disease and better drug delivery systems that can lead to increased access of therapies throughout the world
- Accelerated disease modeling associated with aging and chronic disease
- Regenerative medicine breakthroughs that can repair, restore, or replace damaged tissues and organs by creating ways to expand and grow cells in a three-dimensional environment
- Crop science breakthroughs that can lead to ways to feed the growing world population with less land, water, etc.
- An improved understanding of fundamental material properties that can lead to novel materials and better manufacturing processes on Earth
- Creation of commercially relevant microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment. enabled materials that may transform many U.S. industries including telecommunication semiconductor manufacturing
- 3D-metal printing and other additive manufacturing capacity in space
- Quantum satellite technology that could benefit national security
- Remote sensing capability that can impact a variety of downstream applications including maritime security (jamming, spoofing), weather, agriculture productivity, energy, and urban development
ISS National Laboratory – Bringing Scientific and Economic Value to the Nation
The ISS National Lab is leveraging public-private partnerships to get the most out of the ISS. With the active involvement of our partners, the ISS National Lab is helping deliver advances of scientific and economic value to the nation. As our outreach leads more organizations to form public-private partnerships to use the ISS National Lab, the nation’s return on its investment in the ISS will continue to increase.