The Starlab International Space Station Just Added a Big U.S. Defense Contractor to Its Team

Twenty-seven years in the making, costing as much as $150 billion in present-day dollars to construct, and built by a coalition of 16 separate nations (the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Union predominantly), the International Space Station (ISS) isn't just a marvel of engineering -- it's a marvel of international cooperation.

With construction first starting way back in the 20th century, however, ISS is getting a bit long in the tooth, and with plans in place to dispose of the space station after 2030, multiple projects to build a replacement are already in motion. At last report, at least four separate teams of U.S. companies have expressed interest in building an ISS replacement. Of these, however, only one group enjoys truly "international" support: Starlab.

Starlab welcomed a new teammate this month. Image source: Getty Images.

Introducing Starlab

Led by newly public Voyager Technologies (NYSE: VOYG), the Starlab space station team includes multiple partners, both American (Hilton Worldwide, Northrop Grumman, Palantir ) and not (Canada's MDA Space, Europe's Airbus, and Japan's Mitsubishi). Furthermore, every few months or so, we get another announcement that the Starlab team is expanding even more.

Like this month for example. Just last week, Starlab announced that defense contracting company Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), which also owns the Dynetics aerospace company, will join the Starlab team as "an industry and technology leader with decades of experience in civil space and defense integration."

As the press release explains, Leidos' initial role with the group will be to "assemble and integrate the components of Starlab's space station into a complete system." Later on, Leidos is expected to assist with crew safety, systems engineering, real-time crew support, and ground-based logistics and training.

Starlab versus everybody else

As mentioned above, Starlab's not the only coalition in this newest of space races. Privately owned companies Vast Space and Axiom Space both aim to build their own space stations, for example. Jeff Bezos' privately held Blue Origin is leading a separate Orbital Reef coalition that includes partners Sierra Space, Redwire, and Boeing. Even so, the market heft that's lining up behind Starlab is impressive -- and potentially too big to beat.

Just considering the publicly traded partners we know about, here's a quick rundown of the financial firepower currently backing Starlab:

Data source: S&P Global Market Intelligence.

These are some impressive numbers. Nearly $900 billion in market capitalization. One quarter of $1 trillion in annual revenue. And all this is lined up to support the construction of an international space station with a coalition nearly as broad as that which built the original ISS.

Why Starlab will win

When compared to the coalition closest to Starlab in terms of depth of bench, both of the publicly traded companies working on Orbital Reef, Boeing and Redwire, are known to be unprofitable at present. Sierra Space might be profitable (although as a private company, it's hard to tell). As for the Orbital Reef team leader Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos is known to be subsidizing that company's development to the tune of $1 billion or more per year. It's unlikely he'd have to do that if Blue Origin were making money.

Suffice it to say that in a head-to-head contest, my money would be on a very-well-funded Starlab beating Orbital Reef to completion. Especially when, in addition to its money troubles, Blue Origin is currently preoccupied with trying to win NASA lander contracts on the moon.

While it's certainly possible a dark-horse candidate like Vast or Axiom will surprise us, as things stand today, the momentum clearly favors Starlab. I think it's the odds-on favorite to keep on winning NASA contracts, and eventually to build the next International Space Station.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.