ISS 2.0: Why the next space station could orbit the moon

March 11, 2017 --Dominating the night sky, Earth's natural satellite is often the first target to catch the eye of budding astronomers, and now the moon's siren call is pulling the world's leading space powers too. The five space agencies responsible for building the International Space Station (ISS) met last month in Tsukuba, home to the Japanese space agency JAXA, to decide what comes after the aging ISS. Discussions advanced an evolving plan to build a lunar space station, settling on a tentative orbit and paving the way for finalized plans that may come in late 2017 or early 2018. But friction remains around the ultimate goal of the station: Will the ISS successor be a truly lunar space station or a spaceport on the way to Mars? With the ISS's decommissioning tentatively scheduled for 2024, the International Spacecraft Working Group (ISWG), composed of the American, Russian, Japanese, European, and Canadian space agencies, is looking ahead to the next phase of human space exploration.