Northrup Grumman Drops Developing Private Space Station

On Tuesday, Oct. 3, Northrup Grumman and Voyager Space announced a change in their relationship.  There is a "space race" of sorts in private space stations, which NASA has said they want to see privatized.  Both Northrup Grumman and Voyager Space have been working on the major effort; developing a space station and getting it into orbit. 

Voyager has been working on a concept called Starlab which appears to be a much smaller station than the ISS, and to accentuate the difference even more, will rotate to simulate something like gravity - as seen in every space station movie ever.  

Screen capture from Voyager Space's Starlab webpage.

Northrup Grumman has been working on their own design, which appears to be quite a bit larger, at least from comparing these computer-generated renderings. 

Northrop Grumman said it made more sense for them to drop plans for their own commercial space station (above) and partner with Voyager Space on Starlab. Image credit: Northrop Grumman 

The two companies announced a partnership Oct. 3 where Northrop Grumman will develop a version of its Cygnus spacecraft capable of docking autonomously to Voyager’s Starlab space station, along with other potential future contributions. Northrop will also end development of its own proposed commercial station.

In a joint interview, Steve Krein, vice president of civil and commercial space at Northrop Grumman, and Dylan Taylor, chief executive of Voyager Space, said the partnership emerged from discussions the two companies had about using Northrop's Cygnus vehicles to provide cargo transportation to Starlab. 

Both executives, Krein from Northrop and Taylor from Voyager, were enthusiastic about joining together - as you'd expect at this point.  Taylor praised Northrop saying, "they are, in my opinion, the best hardware manufacturer in aerospace and defense."  Krein countered by saying that while Northrop had made a significant amount of progress and understood the business case, “there was just a stronger case to be made for a combination of the talents, expertise and subject matter experts with ourselves, Voyager and their partners.” 

I find it an interesting combination: old space and new space.  Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo ships (that just went obsolete) have been delivering cargo to the ISS since the start of the commercial contracts that NASA created and the company has a long history.  Northrop and Grumman date back to the 1930s and have developed many aircraft you'd instantly recognize (or think of on your own!).  

Voyager apparently hasn't actually put anything in space; they talk about the Bishop Airlock on the ISS in 2020 as theirs but it seems that was built by Nanoracks and Voyager merged with or bought them.  

Northrop retains the right to sell Cygnus services to everybody, and Voyager will pay them to develop an autonomous docking ability for the Cygnus.  The two companies are looking into ways to get the most out of the collaboration.  

While the partnership means that one fewer company is now pursuing a station to succeed the ISS, NASA saw the arrangement as a positive development. “Refining strategies and evolving partnerships are part of the process as we build a robust low Earth orbit economy where NASA is one of many customers,” said Angela Hart, manager of NASA’s commercial LEO development program, in an agency statement Oct. 3.

With Blue Origin and Sierra Space moving toward dropping their joint agreement to work on the Orbital Reef space station together, there's more than a little "refining strategies and evolving partnerships" going on!