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| Artistic rendition showing a space station mid-parked as a space vessel veers past |
Space1 company has developed a space station to support its fleet of space rockets.
The space station is capable of making supporting maneuvers within the troposphere, Micro, Next, and Near space, and its primary design goals so far are to support the rockets. This will include photographic missions during the rocket's ascending flight to apogee and descent down to recovery, and possibly the station will assist in search and recovery.
The station is slated for a number of tests including altitude, acceleration and velocity, maintaining a stable flight pattern and hovering, testing of the flight computers, various mission plans, search, rescue, and the ability as a platform to test various rocket functions. It can also serve as a space vessel platform for performing tests on the astronauts at various altitudes and during specific missions.
The first space station has limitations and is only capable of semi permanent supportive positions in space, and must return to the Earth periodically for refueling. The next limitation is about altitude. More tests will be needed to determine this limit. The first station may also have stability issues, in particular when arising to mission position during the outcropping of wind.
There may also be specific downrange limitations to the electronic downlink and uplink. Both telemetry radio links have limited ranges that need to be determined.