CEDAR PARK, Texas — The European Space Agency has signed an agreement with Airbus and Voyager Space to check potential use of the businesses’ Starlab industrial space station as a successor to the International Space Station.
Airbus and Voyager said Nov. 9 they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with ESA throughout the European Space Summit in Seville, Spain, earlier within the week. (Dylan Taylor, chairman and chief executive of Voyager Space, is the vice chairman and a shareholder of Multiverse Media Inc., the parent company of SpaceNews.)
The 2 firms and ESA will initially study how the planned Starlab space station could be used to supply continued access to space for Europe after the retirement of the ISS. That utilization could include ESA astronaut missions to Starlab and use of the station for ESA-supported research.
ESA could also provide cargo and crew transportation for Starlab, the businesses added. The agency is starting a industrial cargo initiative it announced on the summit Nov. 6 that seeks to have a vehicle ready for missions by 2028. That cargo vehicle could later evolve right into a crewed vehicle.
“ESA appreciates the transatlantic industry initiative for the industrial Starlab space station, and the potential that its strong European footprint holds for significant European industrial and institutional contributions to, and use of, said station,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said in an announcement.
Each industrial space station developers and ISS partner nations have been determining how best to enable those partners to make use of industrial stations after the retirement of the ISS, currently scheduled for 2030. The present approach amongst ISS partners for bartering services shouldn’t be expected to increase to industrial stations, requiring latest contracts or other partnerships.
“This agreement with the European Space Agency is critical as we proceed to foster international collaboration within the space domain and move towards succeeding the International Space Station with Starlab,” Matthew Kuta, president of Voygaer Space, said within the statement. “We sit up for working with Airbus and ESA to increase Europe’s footprint in space and ensure they continue to be a pacesetter in the brand new generation of economic space exploration.”
Voyager previously took a step towards enabling European access when it announced in August a three way partnership with Airbus to develop Starlab. Having Airbus involved helps not only with the technical development of Starlab, Kuta said on the time, but additionally its business development. “We now have great relationships with ESA, but clearly Airbus has significantly better relationships,” he said then.
“Our collaboration on this next-generation space station builds on an extended and successful partnership between ESA and Airbus in developing and operating a big selection of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft,” Mike Schoellhorn, chief executive of Airbus Defence and Space, said in an announcement.
Besides the three way partnership with Airbus, Voyager Space announced in October a partnership with Northrop Grumman, which had been developing its own industrial space station. Northrop will offer a version of its Cygnus cargo spacecraft in a position to dock autonomously with Starlab, together with other potential contributions.