ISS
Controllers maneuvered the International Space Station Sept. 22 to avoid a close approach by debris from the upper stage of a Japanese rocket.

A more fundamental competition than Bezos vs. Branson is taking shape, pitting companies against the clock. Can those companies establish a human presence in low Earth orbit before the International Space Station is retired around 2030?

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...