SpaceX's Starship Selected to Launch Starlab Space Station

Starlab planners say the commercial space station will serve a global customer base of space agencies, researchers, and companies, ensuring a continued human presence in low-Earth orbit. [Courtesy: Starlab]

SpaceX's Starship rocket has been selected to launch Starlab, the commercial space station venture between Voyager Space and Airbus.

Standing nearly 400 feet tall, Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, with two reusable components, the Super Heavy Booster and Starship spacecraft.

It's what will be needed to launch the commercial space station in a single mission, according to a Starlab official.

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“SpaceX’s history of success and reliability led our team to select Starship to orbit Starlab,” Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, said in a statement. “SpaceX is the unmatched leader for high-cadence launches, and we are proud Starlab will be launched to orbit in a single flight by Starship.”

Starship will fundamentally change how we access space, with entire space stations like Starlab launched on a single mission https://t.co/X4LMrMz0hV
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 31, 2024

Starlab, which will permanently host four crewmembers, is scheduled to launch prior to the International Space Station's (ISS) decommissioning before the end of the decade, heralding the U.S. transitioning to commercially owned and operated low-Earth orbit (LEO) destinations.

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"As a continuously crewed, free-flying space station, Starlab will serve a global customer base of space agencies, researchers, and companies, ensuring a continued human presence in LEO and a seamless transition of microgravity research from the [ISS] into the new commercial space station era," Voyager Space said.

NASA has committed to utilizing and operating ISS through 2030.

“Starlab’s single-launch solution continues to demonstrate not only what is possible but how the future of commercial space is happening now,” said Tom Ochinero, senior vice president of commercial business at SpaceX.