Consider the space of contact structures on the 3-sphere that are fixed at one point.This work shows that the connected component Xi that contains the standard contact structure on the 3-sphere has the homotopy type of a point.The problem is transferred to studying a family of vector fields on the 2-sphere using Giroux s theory of surfaces in contact manifolds. The singular points of these vector fields are treated via 3 types of neighbourhoods. A deformation of contact structures is described that deforms the family of vector fields and "eliminates" singular points in these neighbourhoods. Building on this construction, an algorithm is given that deforms a given loop of contact structures in Xi until all vector fields belong to spheres that are convex surfaces in the sense of Giroux with respect to each contact structure of the loop. In this situation, a homotopy of this loop to the constant one can be constructed.As a consequence, every loop of diffeomorphisms of the 3-sphere that fixes a 2-plane in the tangent space of one point is homotopic to a loop of contactomorphisms of the standard contact structure.
