NASA awards $415 mn to fund three commercial space stations
Washington (AFP) - NASA on Thursday awarded three companies hundreds of millions of dollars to develop commercial space stations it hopes will eventually replace the International Space Station, which is due to retire around the end of the decade. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, aerospace company Nanoracks and defense contractor Northrop Grumman won $130 million, $160 million and $125.6 million contracts respectively to develop their orbital outposts. A fourth company, Axiom Space, was previously awarded a $140 million contract. The US space agency is increasingly turning to private industry to devel...