ALBUQUERQUE -- The mega-sized International Space Station (ISS) could soon have to make room in Earth orbit for a little commercial competitor.

MirCorp, the Amsterdam-based private firm that attempted to keep the Russian Mir space station aloft for paid visits, has announced the construction of a small space station, designed to handle a variety of commercial, scientific or other payloads. The outpost would be the first-ever commercial space station.

"MirCorp has reached agreement with the Russian government and with RSC Energia (a part-private space engineering firm in Russia) to design, develop, launch and operate the world's first private mini-space station," said MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber.

Manber told SPACE.com that the Mini Station 1 is to be human-tended, not permanently occupied. A three-person crew could visit the mini-station for up to 20 days, he said.

"It will be in the same [orbital] plane as the International Space Station, and will serve as the destination for commercial visitors to space, whether tourists, researchers, filmmakers or whomever," Manber said.

The mini station will incorporate new Russian-built hardware and be about the size of the Salyut stations Russia operated in the 1970s and early 1980s, Manber said.

Several other agreements between MirCorp and Russian space authorities have also been reached. Details on these agreements are forthcoming, Manber said. The $100 million station could open for business as soon as 2004.

The station, with a 15-year lifetime, could serve as a way station for cargo ships bound for the ISS.

Manber said that MirCorp continues to press ahead on a business model that evolved from earlier plans to market the Russian Mir space station. For a variety of political and technical reasons, MirCorp could not keep the Mir in orbit, he said.

"Now we are taking what we developed and what we have learned and will use that on our own platform," Manber said. Furthermore, in orbiting the mini-station comes risk reduction, and greater safety by having an extra platform in space, along with additional hardware, he said.

"We are complementing the ISS here, as our Soyuz will fly to both stations and be part of the [space] taxi mission program," Manber said.

In just a few months time, MirCorp has regrouped from the deorbit of Mir and has now gained the permission of Koptev to move forward on the mini-station, Manber said.

MirCorp is now in talks with customers and strategic partners, Manber said, both from the space industry and media.

"This is the model for what exploration of space should and can become," Manber said.

Manber said the company plans to send two paying customers a year to the outpost. In the meantime, Manber said, MirCorp has begun discussions with NASA, the European Space Agency and the other partners in the ISS program to send paying customers there until the first Mini Station is operational. He said his company already is negotiating with paying customers that include corporations and individuals.

Mini Station 1 will be manufactured by RSC Energia, the Korolev-based organization that built Russias Salyut stations, the Mir space station and Russias contributions to the international space station. Manber said MirCorp signed a study contract with Energia currently MirCorps largest shareholder about four months ago to demonstrate the feasibility of the project to potential investors.

Manber said the next step will be raising private capital to fund construction of Mini Station 1. He said the company will raise that money with a combination of venture capital, commercial sponsors and the fees it will charge initial customers.

"We need less than $100 million to pay for the construction of the station and the launch of the station and the Soyuz spacecraft," Manber said in a Sept. 3 interview in Paris with Space News.

Once Mini Station 1 is operational, each mission will have a paying customer accompanied to the private station aboard a Soyuz by two professional cosmonauts. The commercial station will be outfitted with a large window designed to provide spectacular views of Earth. The Mini Station 1 crews will sleep in the Soyuz.

Manber said once each two-week trip is over, the paying guest will accompany the cosmonauts to the ISS. At that time the professional crew will change places with cosmonauts aboard the station whose tour of duty is up. Those cosmonauts then will accompany the tourist on the trip back to Earth in an old Soyuz that was docked to the station during the previous crew stay.

That way, Manber said, the commercial activity will help the Russian government pay for its obligations under the ISS agreement to provide Soyuz crew transport services.

Like the Mir station, Mini Station 1 will get water, fuel and other supplies from unmanned, automated Progress supply spacecraft, which will dock to Mini Station 1 at one of two docking ports.

Mini Station 1 will be serviced by manned Soyuz spacecraft.

In the early 1980s, a small U.S. firm -- Space Industries, Inc., led by former astronaut Joe Allen -- proposed a similar type of station. It was dubbed the Industrial Space Facility (ISF).

But that effort dead-ended when it fell victim to behind-the-scenes snipping between NASA forces, the U.S. Congress and White House commercial space policy aficionados.

As envisioned in the case of the ISF, a free-flying facility can operate autonomously, without a permanent, live-in crew. For instance, this type of station, properly outfitted, could support the production of electronic materials, pharmaceuticals, and other specialty goods. Stopover crews would harvest the bounty of products grown in microgravity for return to Earth.