Introducing the Future of Space Destinations
The first continually occupied, free-flying commercial space station will be Starlab. Starlab, a global space platform for the next era committed to performing advanced research, encouraging industrial activity, and inventing in ways previously unimaginable, will make use of revolutionary technologies that are also well-known. A spacecraft bus that provides power and propulsion would be attached to one side of a docking node that houses Starlab, which would have an inflatable module on the other. The International Space Station’s volume, 340 cubic meters, will be around three-eighths that of Starlab, which will also provide 60 kilowatts of power. The “state-of-the-art” lab and a robotic arm in Starlab will be able to accommodate four astronauts at once.
Realistic Global Collaboration
NanoRacks, Lockheed Martin, and Voyager Space worked together to build the station, known as Starlab. With Voyager managing strategy and investments, NanoRacks will be the principal contractor, while Lockheed will be the supplier and technology integrator.
In recent years, NanoRacks, which began by transporting payloads to the ISS, has become increasingly obvious that it is considering building a commercial space station. It appointed Marshall Smith, a veteran NASA official, to head its commercial space station development efforts in August.
From producing movies to maturing whisky to performing medical and materials research, orbital space offers a wealth of economic opportunities. NanoRacks sees prospects for collaboration with both public and private space organizations, as well as for housing space tourists.
In order to build and run Starlab, a free-flying space station for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and a broad customer base of space agencies and researchers, Voyager Space and Airbus Defence and Space have partnered. The launch of Starlab in 2028 will maintain human presence in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
Airbus Defence and Space
For the Starlab space station, which will function as an on-orbit laboratory for astronauts to perform studies and accelerate scientific discovery, Airbus Defence and Space will offer technical design support and expertise. With the potential to carry out hundreds of experiments and technical studies each year, Starlab is built to offer 100% of the payload capacity of the International Space Station.
Voyager and Hilton
Whereas, Voyager and Hilton will collaborate on architecture and design to create the Space Hospitality crew headquarters aboard Starlab, including common areas, hospitality suites, and sleeping quarters for the astronauts. This will be done by utilizing Hilton’s world-class creative design and innovation experts. The teams will also look to collaborate on longer-term projects, such as the ground-to-space astronaut experience, international co-marketing and branding, and additional tourism, educational, and business endeavors.
About Voyager
With a nearly 20-year history of spaceflight and more than 1500 completed trips as of Fall 2022, Voyager provides space station infrastructure, services, and technological solutions to commercial customers, civil and national security government agencies, academic and research institutions, and more, with the aim of accelerating a sustainable space economy.
About Airbus
For a secure and unified world, Airbus leads the sustainable aircraft industry. To offer effective and cutting-edge solutions in the fields of aerospace, defense, and linked services, the company is continually innovating. Airbus provides cutting-edge, fuel-efficient commercial aircraft along with related services. In addition, Airbus is a global space industry leader and a defense and security leader in Europe. The world’s most effective civil and military rotorcraft solutions and services are offered by Airbus in the field of helicopters.
About Hilton
Hilton is a top provider of hospitality services with a portfolio of 18 top-tier brands, 7,000 locations, and 1.1 million rooms spread throughout 122 nations and territories. In its more than 100-year existence, Hilton has welcomed more than 3 billion guests, claimed the top place on Fortune’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, and been acknowledged as a worldwide leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for five years running. Hilton is committed to realizing its original goal of lighting the world with the light and warmth of hospitality.
The collaborative team will build the station, which will function as a research facility in low-Earth orbit much like the ISS. The frontier of space is still expanding. The International Space Station simply won’t be able to sustain as many missions as a desire to fly to it as science advances and space tourism grows. This bottleneck is already present between SpaceX crew flights, Dragon cargo flights, and (soon) Starliner flights.
The success of the Commercial Crew Program has demonstrated the usefulness of private firms in space, and NASA now supports more commercial partners in its space operations than in years past. As the ISS matures and eventually is abandoned, the agencies recently announced the CLD (Private Low-Earth Orbit Destination) initiative to assist commercial space stations.
Space Act Agreement
NASA granted a $160 million Space Act Agreement to Voyager and Nanoracks in December 2021 for the construction of Starlab, a continuously manned, free-flying space station that will take the place of the International Space Station. The George Washington Carver Science Park, the first science park in space, is intended to be housed in Starlab, where researchers and business professionals may share results, work together, and utilize cutting-edge technology to improve both academic and industrial pursuits.
We appreciate NASA and our US government partners’ unwavering support of our efforts to provide a commercial LEO destination that caters to the needs of the US and global research community. Dylan Taylor kept going. “We want clients all across the world to use Starlab as their platform of choice. With today’s agreement with Airbus, the US and Europe might continue to have major space access.
Targeting Operations for ‘One Launch’ in 2028
The single-flight launch of Starlab in 2028 will include a fully operational scientific park. There is no need for extra equipped flights. This increases the number of worldwide clients who may access science, research, and manufacturing prospects.
One launch will lift the four-person Starlab station, which is anticipated to occur in 2028. According to Nanoracks’ Starlab page, Outpost will have a dwelling module with an interior space of 12,000 cubic feet (340 cubic meters), a power and propulsion element, a laboratory setup, and a sizable exterior robotic arm to service payloads and freight.
The International Space Station (ISS) has an interior capacity of 32,333 cubic feet, or 916 cubic meters, which is comparable to a Boeing 747 aeroplane.
If everything goes as planned, there will be some rivalry for clients with Starlab. For instance, according to Axiom Space executives who contacted Space.com via email, the Houston-based business plans to launch one private module to the ISS in 2024 and three more by the end of 2027. It will be possible for that quartet to separate from the bigger mothership and function independently as a free-flying commercial space station. A private orbiting station is something that both Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and the Colorado-based Sierra Space are working to create.
