Watch this Space: What’s next, after ISS? Change is coming soon to Low-Earth Orbit

The idea was straight out of science-fiction: A post-Cold War US and Russia working on a joint mission to build a giant, rotating, Earth-orbiting laboratory in space. “It’s been an invaluable platform for understanding how the human body reacts under different conditions,” says Anil Bhardwaj, director of Physical Research Laboratory, a national research institute for space and allied sciences in Ahmedabad. The Orbital Reef Space Station, built in a collaborative effort between a number of private companies, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and the aviation giant Boeing, will serve as a combined research and tourism centre. “But the world remains unclear about the larger intent of their scientific research, since they haven’t published anything and haven’t specified their goals.” Now, as private players look set to dominate the future of space exploration, scientists are beginning to express concern that the opacity that has shrouded China’s experiments only foreshadows what most space exploration, particularly in Low-Earth Orbit, might look like. “It’s difficult to say, right now, exactly how the private space stations will work with each other,” Raychaudhury says.