Nasa has selected a company to build a private hotel on board the International Space Station.

The new additions to the ISS will include acrew habitat that will serve as a home for future space tourists.

It will also have aresearch andmanufacturing facility and large-windowed Earth observatory, according to Axiom, the Texas-based company that is building the extension.

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Axiom hopes the segment could one day serve as a self-contained space station that could replace the ISS when it is decommissioned.

It hopes to launch the new commercial hub in 2024, it said.

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas flom fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telelscope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas flom fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telelscope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Nasaannounced last year that it would allow space tourists onto the ISS, as part of a broader effort to encourage commercial companies to become involved in US space exploration. Those first visitors were expected to arrive later this year.

Adding new segments to the ISS could allow more people to travel to the station by increasing the volume, Axiom said, as well as leaving space for new kinds of research "such as isolation studies and Earth observation".

Over time, Axiom hopes that the work currently being done on the International Space Station is gradually transferred to its new private segment, allowing for it to continue without interruption when the ISSis retired.

At that point it will be able to detach and serve as a self-contained space station. At that point, Nasa will no longer have to pay for the cost of running the ISS or launching a replacement, Axiom suggested.

In 2018, Axiom commissioned designer Philippe Starck to create interiors for the habitation module of a possible space station. He described the result as a "comfortable and friendly egg".

(Axiom/Philippe Starck)

"Starcks vision was to create a nest, a comfortable and friendly egg, which would feature materials and colors stemmed from a fetal universe," a press release at the time said. "The walls are sprinkled with hundreds of nano-Leds with changing colors as a continuation to the view on the universe through the large windows.

"Just as all the shades of lights and colors of day and night, the egg will also live to the mood and biorhythm of its osmotic inhabitant."

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Nasa to add hotel capsule to International Space Station as part of commercial plans - The Independent