Pretty much everybody is talking about what's looking to be a replay of the 1960s US vs. USSR race to be the first to land on the moon. This time, of course, it's looking to be the US vs. the People's Republic of China and a group of others seemingly positioning themselves to get favorable trade deals with or better treatment from China.
There seems to be a second race developing that is less tied to geopolitics, a race to become the preferred replacement space station for the ISS, now considered to be essentially in its last five years of life.
We've covered Axiom Space, Vast, Blue Origin, and probably others I'm missing.
Today, I found references to one I hadn't heard of yet on Payload, a site I subscribe to. In fact three companies are mentioned in the headline "Voyager Selects Vivace to Manufacture Starlab".
Voyager Technologies ($VOYG), the majority shareholder of Starlab Space, has tapped Vivace Corp. to manufacture the primary structure of Starlab’s commercial space station.
The announcement places Starlab one step closer to launching the potential ISS replacement to orbit in 2029, and Voyager expects Vivace to complete the initial test structures by the end of the year.
An important aspect of this group of companies chasing the next Big Thing is that they all approach the problem differently. Vast is on the small side of the plans, with the Haven-1 big enough for a crew of four for up to 30 days, and crews would fly up and back on SpaceX Crew Dragons. Their early descriptions of the Haven -1 said they aim to operate a "100-meter-long [330 feet] multi-module spinning artificial gravity space station launched by SpaceX's Starship transportation system." That never seemed to appear, and they later showed a test vehicle that fits in a Falcon 9 payload fairing. The current planning date for the launch of the smaller Haven-1 is "NET June, 2026" on NextSpaceflight. The most recent photo I've seen of the prototype Haven-1 appears to be the one that fits in a Falcon 9 fairing.
Voyager is taking the opposite approach, along the lines of "how much payload can we put up on Starship?" Which immediately brings up the question of "where can we build something big enough to fill a Starship?" How about where they build the SLS?
To complete the project, Vivace intends to use NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans—which manufactured the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis II mission.
“We’re building a really big structure. And what place has the lock on building a space-rated, human-rated structure of that size? Well, if you look at MAF, the Michoud Assembly Facility, you’ll see that that capability exists there,” Starlab CEO Marshall Smith told Payload.
Starlab’s primary structure is planned to be about 8 m in diameter, just smaller than the core stage of the 8.4 m diameter SLS rocket. At this size, Starlab will offer about 40% of the pressurized volume of the ISS.
Go back to the Haven-1 for a minute. Haven-1 has a diameter of 4.4 m. As a precursor to a larger station Vast is planning, Haven-1 will spend a significant amount of its time on-orbit uncrewed.
Smith told Payload that committing to a larger station will give Starlab the capacity for continuous crewed habitation from the get-go, and the ability to perform most of its maintenance from the inside of the vehicle—lessening the need for spacewalks.
“We have tremendous capability to support research—all of NASA’s desires, as well as industry and commercial,” Smith said. “We’re not going to build stuff and let it go to waste. We’re going to build the systems that we’re building, and then make sure it’s permanently crewed right from the beginning.”
So far, NASA has awarded Starlab $217.5 million on their contract. Voyager has said that the program is designed to generate decades of free cash flow by offering governments and commercial customers lots of space to develop advanced materials, test their new technologies in-space, and conduct scientific research.
“I think in the short term there will be winners and losers,” Smith said. “[With] lower pricing you’re going to see this whole [sector] grow dramatically, but again, the initial take, my guess is probably two or maybe three stations’ worth, depending upon their size and what they’re capable of doing.”
Smith maintained that there’s room for more than one station to succeed, a statement which seems unquestionable to me. As we learn to "spread our wings" in space, I can imagine a space-based economy where resources acquired in space are used in space as well as being dropped back to the surface. The tough question there is how long it takes to establish that.
Starlab rendering of their first station. Image credit: Starlab Space LLC
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