The
European Space Agency (ESA),
Airbus Defence and Space, and
Voyager Space have signed a trilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the
ESA Space Summit which took place in Seville earlier this month, outlining their collaboration for the Starlab space station in the post-International Space Station (ISS) era. The MoU outlines that all three parties intend to commonly foster science and technology development and explore the potential for collaboration in conjunction with post-ISS low-Earth orbit (LEO) destinations.
The collaboration will initially focus on, but is not limited to, exploring opportunities for sustained access to space for Europe through the Starlab space station. These could include access to the Starlab space station for ESA and its member states, for astronaut missions and sustained long-term research activities as well as commercial business development. Also contributions to research projects on upcoming missions, leveraging European technology across various fields, including advanced robotics and automation/artificial intelligence (AI), and advancing European science priorities, such as health and life sciences.
It could also include the establishment of a complete ‘end-to-end’ ecosystem comprising the Starlab space station as a low-Earth orbit destination and a potential ESA-developed European transportation system (cargo and crew), leveraging standardised interfaces in the interest of an open access policy. This agreement reflects ESA’s ambition to enable a smooth transition from the International Space Station towards the sustained exploitation of human and robotic infrastructures in low-Earth orbit after 2030, including through commercial services.
Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, said: “ESA appreciates the transatlantic industry initiative for the commercial Starlab space station, and the potential that its strong European footprint holds for significant European industrial and institutional contributions to the space station. Our teams are looking forward to working closely with the Starlab teams here in Europe and in the USA.”
International collaboration Voyager Space president Matt Kuta said: “This agreement with ESA is critical as we continue to foster international collaboration in the space domain and move towards succeeding the ISS with Starlab. We look forward to working with Airbus and ESA to extend Europe’s footprint in space and ensure they remain a leader in the new generation of commercial space exploration.”
Mike Schoellhorn, Airbus Defence and Space CEO, said: “At Airbus, we are very pleased that ESA is continuing to look to the future and demonstrating such a keen interest in Starlab. Our collaboration on this next-generation space station builds on a long and successful partnership between ESA and Airbus in developing and operating a wide range of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft.”
In the past, Airbus has supplied ESA with iconic spacecraft such as the ISS Columbus Module, all five automated transfer vehicles (ATV) and – most recently – the European Service Module (ESM) for Orion, Europe’s contribution to NASA’s Artemis missions back to the Moon.
In August 2023, Voyager and Airbus first announced an agreement to form a transatlantic joint venture to support a continuous human presence in low-Earth orbit and a seamless transition of microgravity science and research opportunities in the post-ISS era. Starlab is also expected to have a European affiliated joint venture to directly serve the European Space Agency and its member state space agencies.