Texas-based aerospace company Vivace, which operates a manufacturing center at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East, has landed a contract to help build a space station for Starlab Space, a global joint venture vying for funding in a hypercompetitive sector of commercial spaceflight.
Led by the U.S. space technology firm Voyager Space and the European aerospace conglomerate Airbus, Starlab plans to build a low-Earth orbit station by the end of the decade that can house four researchers or space tourists.
The company said the aluminum-based station will be one of the largest structures ever developed for launch.
Starlab announced last week that it has selected Vivace to build that “primary structure” at Michoud, the local home to NASA in New Orleans and about 20 other aerospace and high-tech companies. Vivace has had a presence at the 829-acre manufacturing facility since its founding in 2006. The company’s corporate headquarters are in San Antonio.
Commercial uses of the Starlab space station include “in-orbit” satellite manufacturing. The station also could act as a port for future space exploration missions. The partners developing it promise to deliver research and commercial opportunities in microgravity.
The flurry of activity related to commercial space stations comes as NASA plans the end of an era. The existing International Space Station — which has been run for nearly three decades by space agencies in the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada and Russia — is scheduled to cease operations in the 2030s.
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Since the ISS is expensive to operate and maintain, NASA launched a program in 2021 that encourages private development of alternatives. Essentially, the agency wants to get out of the space station business while it focuses instead on missions to the Moon and Mars.
The Starlab project is one of several commercial alternatives in the works. A competing partnership between the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin and Sierra Space is developing a station called the Orbital Reef. Another domestic competitor, Axiom, is planning its own design.
All of the companies are competing to show NASA and commercial customers that their concepts are the most viable. Starlab CEO Marshall Smith said selecting Vivace to lead the manufacturing of the station’s primary structure is a step in the right direction.
“Starlab is meticulously engineered to deliver scalability, reliability, and mission-critical research to our partners,” Smith said in a prepared statement.
The next steps in the project will be to finalize the design and begin the manufacturing process for the station’s primary structure. Vivace said its U.S. government partners at Michoud will offer subject matter expertise, structural analysis and testing infrastructure.
“Leveraging Vivace’s facilities in Louisiana, we are proud to contribute to this significant project supporting U.S. and allied leadership in human spaceflight,” said Steve Cook, the company’s chairman.
Gov. Jeff Landry cheered the deal.
“We are excited that Vivace Corporation and Starlab have partnered to utilize the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility as a central element in the design and build of the structures for the Starlab spacecraft,” Landry said.
In addition to Voyager and Airbus, the Starlab partnership includes Mitsubishi Corporation, MDA Space and Palantir Technologies. Additional strategic partners include Hilton, Northrop Grumman and The Ohio State University.