Voyager allies with the European Airbus to build Starlab, the commercial space station that competes to be the replacement for the ISS

2023-08-02 18:43:15

Commercial space travel has come from companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactics and Blue Origin, and by the end of this decade they will take hold with Voyager’s Starlab, which aspires to be mankind’s first commercial space station. This is one of the three projects preselected by NASA to replace the International Space Station (ISS), which will cease to be operational by 2030, and where private clients will be able to go to carry out research. To deploy this private version of the ISS, European aerospace manufacturer Airbus and US Voyager Space today announced the creation of a joint venture that will develop, build and operate Starlab.

Starlab’s original project included an inflatable habitat designed by the American company Lockheed Martin. But following the decision to switch to a metal structure, Lockheed’s role has been replaced by Airbus, which built the Columbus module for the International Space Station. “Lockheed likely still has a role to play somewhere in the supply chain,” Dylan Taylor, chief executive of Voyager Space, told reporters. Lockheed remains a major customer for Voyager and Starlab will continue to be led by the United States, he added.

“The US-led joint venture will bring together world leaders in the space arena, while further uniting US and European interests in space exploration,” Voyager and Airbus said in a statement. In addition to the US entity, a European subsidiary of the joint venture will also be created to provide services directly to the European Space Agency (ESA) and the space agencies of its Member States.

This agreement deepens the collaboration already announced last January when Voyager selected Airbus as a partner to support the technical design of Starlab. “The International Space Station is widely regarded as the most successful global cooperation platform in space history and we are committed to building on this legacy as we move forward with Starlab,” Voyager Space President Matthew Kuta said in the message.

Specifically, the ISS is an orbital laboratory the size of a football field that has hosted crews continuously for more than 22 years. NASA has planned to retire the ISS in 2030 and rely on private companies to host its low-Earth orbit scientific research, but agency officials have acknowledged that it may need to extend the lifespan as private replacements take shape. .

“We are creating this joint venture to reliably meet the known demand from global space agencies, while opening up new opportunities for commercial users,” Kuta added. Voyager received in 2021, via Nanoracks (of which it is the majority shareholder), 160 million from NASA to dedicate to Starlab within its commercial space development program in low Earth orbit (OTB or LEO, for its acronym in English). Rival stationaries under the program are being developed by Axiom Space and a team led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, as well as Vast which has partnered with Space X for a 2025 launch of Vast Haven-1.

Starlab will be a continuously crewed, free-flying space station serving NASA and a global customer base of space agencies and researchers. The mission of the NASA program is to maintain, according to the statement, the continued human presence and American leadership in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Voyager Space and Airbus have said that Starlab will launch in 2028, but there is no specific timetable yet. “It will happen before the decommissioning of the ESS; we are very confident about that. Whether it’s late 2027, early 2028 or late 2028, we’re still working on those details,” Dylan Taylor said. The two companies expect to announce a launch provider in the coming months.