Starlab Space Unveils Exciting New European Venture!

A startup aiming to succeed the ISS has inaugurated a new business branch in Germany to ensure that commercial space stations uphold the ISS’s international heritage following its retirement.

Starlab Space—a US-based consortium comprising Voyager Space, Airbus, Mitsubishi Corporation, and MDA Space—revealed the establishment of its new subsidiary in Bremen, Germany yesterday.

“ESA shares the same concern regarding the ISS’s decommissioning as NASA,” Brad Henderson, Starlab’s chief commercial officer, informed Payload. “We’re offering them the chance to transition into Starlab, as much or even more—if they choose—than they had with the ISS.”

Ich bin ein Bremener: According to Henderson, the EU-based subsidiary of Starlab is a joint venture, with 51% owned by Airbus and 49% owned by Starlab.

This new business entity will be spearheaded by Manfred Jaumann, who serves as the head of LEO and suborbital programs at Airbus Defense and Space, in addition to overseeing ISS services, payloads, and missions.

The concept behind the German subsidiary, named Starlab Space GmbH, is to establish a local presence and legal foundations to unlock business development and engineering prospects for European enterprises, space agencies, and research organizations.

The strategy: With the support of its venture partners, Starlab has successfully formed collaborative arrangements with research organizations in both the US and Japan:

• Mitsubishi has assumed partial management of the Shonan iPark innovation center in Fujisawa, Japan in 2023.
• Voyager Space contributed to the creation of the George Washington Carver Science Park at Ohio State University in the same year.

In a similar manner, Starlab Space GmbH has collaborated with Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich to expedite Europe’s scientific contributions to the new space station.

“This initiative encompasses much more than simply constructing the space station. It’s about fostering an economy. It strengthens alliances among those space agencies by, with, and through a CLD provider,” Henderson asserted.