The International Space Station has been confirmed to extend its service until 2030, while Russia has basically determined that a new space station called an "orbital service station" will be built. No one wants to give up the space station, what is the purpose?
The International Space Station was officially started in 1998, the entire process of building the station lasted for more than ten years, until 2010 finally completed all the construction tasks and turned to the full use stage, it is a space international cooperation project jointly built by 16 countries, it can support human beings in space for a long time, it can be said that the International Space Station has made no small contribution to the cause of human space exploration. However, with the increase in the use time of the International Space Station, various problems have begun to appear, and in 2020, the Zvezda service module has an air leakage problem.
To this day, the air leakage problem of the International Space Station's Zvezda service module has not been completely eradicated, and according to the original plan, the International Space Station should also be officially retired at the end of its service in 2024.
Despite the plan, there has been controversy over the timing of the ISS's retirement, and a decision was finally made after repeated consultations to decommission the ISS until 2030. On the one hand, under the leadership of the US National Space Administration, the International Space Station has made a decision to postpone the decommissioning, and on the other hand, Russia has begun to prepare for the decommissioning of the International Space Station, that is, to build its own space station construction plan. Now Russia has basically determined the construction plan of the new space station, and named the upcoming space station "orbital service station".
When it comes to new space stations, we can't help but think of our own "Tiangong Space Station" in China, so who is better, Russia's "Orbital Service Station" or our "Tiangong Space Station"?
In fact, there is no comparison at all, because compared with the Tiangong space station, the orbital service station seems to be an era behind. First of all, in terms of scale, the four modules of the first phase of the orbital service station are about 50 tons, while the maximum push configuration of the second phase of the Tiangong space station has reached 180 tons, which is obviously not an order of magnitude. Secondly, from the perspective of assembly methods, the Tiangong space station uses a difficult transposition assembly, while the orbital service station directly adopts the traditional axial docking. Maybe you'll think "wouldn't it be better to be simple as long as it can be assembled"?
In fact, the significance of the space station construction process is far greater than the significance of use after the completion of the construction, and the assembly and docking process of the space station itself is to improve the scientific research capabilities in orbit, not to assemble it in a simple way.
Therefore, the construction process of the space station is not as simple as possible, but the more complex the better. The difference between the orbital service module and the Tiangong space station does not only exist in the tonnage and assembly technical capabilities, but also in terms of the configuration of the space station itself, there are also cross-era production bureaus, such as the orbital service module using a large size and heavy rigid solar wing, while the Tiangong space station uses a large flexible solar wing. We all know that in the space space thing, size and weight can be hard wounds, the size of the conference squeezes the structural space, the weight of the assembly increases the burden of the rocket.
This is actually a very interesting thing, on the one hand, the United States is facing the problem of the International Space Station is not to be decommissioned, on the other hand, Russia even if it is an era behind, it will build its own space station, why is this?
Objectively speaking, the space station is indeed a large spacecraft with many functions, which can provide a lot of help for human space exploration and research, but the current level of human space technology is very limited, so the actual role that the space station can play is actually not large, as far as the International Space Station is concerned, the current two main tasks are to cultivate space seeds and conduct limited space research. Since the actual role of the space station is not large, why does everyone hold the space station and not let go? In fact, the problem is not the role of the space station itself, but the entire industrial chain behind the space station.
The space station is an indispensable and important part of manned spaceflight, and manned spaceflight involves a huge industrial chain, which includes technology and personnel, once the space station is gone, the manned space industry will inevitably be broken, and the fault of manned spaceflight will cause an irreparable blow to the entire industrial chain.
Once the industrial chain is destroyed, it is quite difficult to recover. It is like a closed area with only one embroidery factory, due to poor efficiency, the factory decided to stop production for a year, and when it wanted to reopen a year later, it was found that it was impossible, because the weaving factory, printing and dyeing factory, and sericulture industry that served the factory had disappeared, and the industrial chain had been completely destroyed. This is the reason why everyone holds the space station and does not give up, which is one of the reasons why we must build the Tiangong space station, the space station has never been an individual, it will drive the rapid development of a whole industrial chain.