Who's Winning the Space Station Race Right Now?

In 2030, the International Space Station (ISS) will pass its sell-by date. NASA will then pay Elon Musk $843 million to push the space station to a fiery death. What happens then?

Ideally, by the time ISS takes its swan dive, mostly burning up in Earth's atmosphere before plunging into the Pacific, we will have one or more privately owned space stations in orbit and ready to take the ISS' place. Currently, four separate teams of space companies are developing such space stations:

• Independent space company Vast.
• Independent company Axiom Space.
• Orbital Reef, a joint venture led by Blue Origin and backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, includes partners Sierra Space, Redwire, Boeing, and others.
• Starlab, an even bigger and more international team led by Voyager Technologies (NYSE: VOYG), with help from partners Hilton Worldwide, Janus Henderson Group, Leidos, Northrop Grumman, and Palantir in the U.S. and MDA Space, Airbus, and Mitsubishi internationally.

One of these teams just made a major advance.

Image source: Getty Images.

Starlab completes its CDR

Earlier this week, Starlab announced that it has "completed its Commercial Critical Design Review (CCDR) with NASA in attendance."

Those last two words are significant. Because this is a commercial CDR, NASA doesn't actually have the authority to accept or reject Starlab's design. It's more of an observer and advisor on a project run by and for the Starlab team -- although NASA hopes to become a Starlab customer once it's in orbit.

These details aside, completing the CCDR marks the 28th milestone toward completing Starlab, says the company. It also likely entitles Starlab to receive a milestone payment from NASA (under the Commercial LEO Destinations Space Act Agreement), as it financially supports Starlab's work.

Plus, with this milestone completed, Starlab is ready to "transition from design to manufacturing and systems integration."

What it means for investors

In its press release, Starlab added that it is now certain that Starlab, a single-unit space station that can be put into orbit with just one launch of a SpaceX Starship, will have "ISS-equivalent payload and crew capabilities" (i.e., it's as big as the space station it's designed to replace).

Investors will also be pleased to hear that Starlab believes it will generate "sustainable, robust revenue" for the companies building it. As the team with the most publicly traded companies participating -- and, thus, the project easiest for us to invest in -- this is important.

The Starlab team did not say when it expects its space station to reach orbit or become operational, however.

At last report, the rival Orbital Reef team had completed only its System Requirements Review (SRR) and System Definition Review (SDR) milestones (the latter in June 2025), requirements that are less advanced than the CCDR, putting Starlab ahead of Orbital Reef in this race.

Starlab appears to be lagging behind Axiom (which admittedly had a big head start), which passed the next step beyond CCDR, the Manufacturing Readiness Review, back in 2021 and is currently building its first station module.

Vast may even be further along, having completed its own Haven-1 module and begun testing it in preparation for a launch later in 2026.

Surprisingly, the two independent teams -- Axiom and Vast -- appear closest to launch at this point. With this week's announcement, though, it's clear Starlab aims to catch up fast.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Boeing, Leidos, MDA Space, Palantir Technologies, and Redwire. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.