Astronomy Prints 🌌: Industry says proposed NASA changes to commercial space station plans create confusion

Saturday, March 28, 2026

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

This week, NASA outlined a new direction for exploration in the next decade. These priorities have left members of industry and the agency's civil counterparts around the globe racing to digest the updates and reorient their strategies.

Here's a preview of SpaceNews' latest report on the reaction to some of these changes and a digest of all our coverage this week detailing NASA's announcements.

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

By Jeff Foust

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.

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NASA said at the event it is considering the new approach because it believes the market for commercial stations is not developing as rapidly as previously expected, and because companies don't have experience with space station operations.

Cavossa, whose organization includes several companies working on commercial space stations, criticized the NASA proposal.

"Yesterday, NASA announced it is considering yet another major change to the Commercial LEO Destination program, sowing concern and, really, sowing confusion among the commercial space companies I represent," he said.

Read the full article.

Catch up on NASA's announcements and the response:

SpaceNews' Orbital Data Centers event series kicks off on Tuesday: Tune in at 1 p.m. ET on March 31 for a conversation on the energy and computing needs driving the push toward orbital data centers, where there are gaps and where there are opportunities and what comes next in this fast-moving field, with speakers from Star Catcher, Loft Orbital and the Foundation for American Innovation. Register now.

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