This Space Station Company Will Now Go to the Moon, Too

Two weeks ago, I called Voyager Technologies (NYSE: VOYG), "easily the cheapest of the three space stocks" I was covering at the time, and also "a wild card in space."

Just two days later, Voyager played that card.

In a bold move, the rocket engine company that's also leading a 10-company consortium to build an International Space Station replacement announced it's taking on a new project, and buying space start-up Astrobotic for "up to $300 million." And as I read it, Voyager's new goal is to move from low-Earth orbit and become a leading NASA contractor on the moon.

Image source: NASA.

Voyager bets on Astrobotic

Astrobotic is one of a small handful of privately owned small space companies aiming to win NASA contracts to build lunar lander spacecraft, lunar rovers to use on the moon, and lunar power stations to keep astronauts alive once they get there.

The company's two best-known products are the lunar landers Peregrine and Griffin. A Peregrine launched on the first-ever United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur flight in January 2024, but immediately suffered an engine malfunction that prevented it from reaching the moon. The company's larger Griffin lander will make its attempt to reach the moon later this year, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

While Peregrine was a small lander, intended as a pathfinder to prove Astrobotic could land on the moon (but then didn't), Astrobotic describes Griffin as more of an operational model, and the company's "first infrastructure-class lander," designed to send substantial payloads to build a moon base, and to be built in volume.

Griffin will be rated to carry about 1,400 pounds of cargo per trip. Its first significant contract is to carry a 1,100-pound Astrolab FLIP rover to Nobile Crater on the south pole of the moon as part of NASA's Moon Base 2 mission, scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Timing is everything

Astrobotic won't be the first private company to put a lander on the moon (if it does). Intuitive Machines won that honor in 2024. It won't be the first company to land a lander upright, either. That was Firefly Aerospace in 2025.

But because of the explosion of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket in May, which will prevent that company from delivering a Blue Moon Mk1 lander to the moon this year in NASA's now-inappropriately named Moon Base 1 mission, Astrobotic now has a good chance of putting the first lander on the moon as part of NASA's new initiative to build a permanent moon base over the next six years. (Whether NASA renames the landing "Moon Base 1" instead of "Moon Base 2" remains to be seen.)

And by virtue of its purchase of Astrobotic, now Voyager Technologies will be part of that.

What Astrobotic means to Voyager

Voyager Technologies has spent the past several years developing the technology needed for humans to live off-planet, aboard a new Starlab space station that will replace the aging International Space Station. Much of Voyager's experience here should be directly transferable to the moon, and the company has begun taking steps to make this transition even more obvious.

The company invested in Max Space in March, gaining access to its expandable habitats technology. Buying Astrobotic outright adds two more pieces of the lunar puzzle -- landers, and also Astrobotic's LunaGrid solar power distribution system to power a moon base.

For investors, the best news of all here may be the price.

NASA awarded Astrobotic $323 million for its Griffin mission -- which, if it succeeds and leads to semi-regular follow-on missions, could mean that, at the stated "up to $300 million" purchase price, Voyager is getting Astrobotic for less than 1 times sales. There's also the potential for Astrobotic to win back NASA's $610 million VIPER lander contract for Griffin. This was originally awarded to Astrobotic, then reassigned to Blue Origin when Astrobotic's Peregrine failed to reach the moon.

Now that Blue Origin has suffered its own catastrophic setback, there's reason to hope a successful Griffin landing could bring VIPER back to Astrobotic -- and to Voyager Technologies -- to stay.

Rich Smith has positions in Intuitive Machines. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intuitive Machines. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.