The making of a space station

On a bright July 2016 morning, a hundred extraordinary people from all the world converged in the Technion dorms in Haifa, Israel. This team of engineering, scientists, and space professionals arrived in order to take part in the International Space University’s Space Studies Program (SSP). The SSP is a 9 week professional program designed to bring together space enthusiasts from disparate parts of the world, give them an international and inter-disciplinary education, and create a global network in the process.
As a kid, I always dreamed of getting involved with spaceships and space exploration. That’s probably why I became a mechanical engineer. In 2015, I had the opportunity to participate in two back-to-back space conferences in Jerusalem: the Space Generation Conference and the International Astronautical Conference. These introduced me to the International Space University (ISU). A year later, I found myself studying in an ISU program.
As part of the program, I had the privilege to be part of a team designing a two-hundred-person artificial gravity space station. We called it ‘Starport 1’.

Rendering of ‘Starport1’

Initially, I worked on preliminary design, and then progressed to leading the Business and Funding team and the 3D printing team. As team leader, I chose to work with Norwegian mechanical engineers Øystein R. Borgersen and Erik Falk-Petersen, as well as Nandakumar Venkatapathy, an Indian rocket engineer (pictured below), who had seventeen years of experience at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)!

Left to right: Nandakumar and me

The space station rotates around its axis at a rate of roughly three rotations per minute. It houses two-hundred-people and is powered by a nuclear reactor. For more information go to this

As for the 3D model itself, it is a simplified version of the space station, since many parts, such as trusses, are too small after scaling. The model is very lightweight, as each part is made up of 5% material and 95% air.

Left to right: me, Jaroslaw (team project teaching associate) and Nandakumar

After three frantic days of printing, many printing failures, and final painting, the model was ready to be showcased in the final project presentation.

After the program was successfully over, I decided to present a gift to my sponsors, Amos Spacecom:

After three frantic days of printing, many printing failures, and final painting, the model was ready to be showcased in the final project presentation.

After the program was successfully over, I decided to present a gift to my sponsors, Amos Spacecom:

Half section of the space station

Above you can see a half-section of the space station glued to a mirror. This provides the illusion of the entire space station.

The symmetry of the space station also allow for a quarter section model attached to two mirrors, which are placed perpendicular to each other:

Quarter section of the space station printed and assembled by me.

This provides structural rigidity and protection.

Overall, this design shows the power of bringing together an international, interdisciplinary and intercultural group of passionate people. The final design was showcased at the SSP final presentation. Providing a scaled model helped better explain the design study. ‘Starport1’ continued on to be presented at the 2017 Astronautical Conference in Mexico. The design will be used as a basis for the commercial space company Axiom Space, which plans to design new space stations in the future.