BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.—By the end of the next decade, U.S. space officials expect that entrepreneurs and companies—rather than a consortium of nations—will be launching and operating various space stations for in-orbit research.

The prospect that the current international space station, now supported by more than a dozen countries, is likely to be replaced by an array of relatively small, nongovernmental scientific platforms was laid out Wednesday by the top manned-exploration official at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space...