How Much Does It Cost to Build a Space Station? Would You Believe Less Than $4 Billion?

It took 13 years, 15 nations, and roughly $100 billion to build the International Space Station (ISS). But one company thinks it can build a replacement for as little as $3 billion -- or less.

That company's name is Voyager Technologies ... and it's about to list an initial public offering (IPO).

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Details, details

I first wrote about the impending Voyager Technologies IPO back in February, but to be honest, there wasn't a whole lot to say about it then. Voyager made its first filing for initial public offering under a guarantee of confidentiality, you see. As a result, most of what we knew about Voyager's IPO at the time came directly from Voyager itself, via information published on its own website.

That just changed.

Last week, Voyager finally filed its IPO prospectus (termed an S-1) publicly. And while a lot of important data blocks in the document remain blank and yet to be filled in, Voyager did add a lot of background information on its business.

Voyager is best known today as one of four teams competing for NASA contracts to kick-start Voyager's efforts to create a replacement -- privately owned -- space station. But Voyager actually describes itself as an "innovation-driven defense technology and space solutions company," suggesting much more widely ranging interests, above and beyond just building a space station replacement. For this reason, structurally, the company has organized itself in three business divisions: Defense & National Security, Space Solutions, and Starlab Space Stations.

Details on Starlab in particular

The Starlab division will participate in an international joint venture to operate the proposed Starlab space station. "Equity" partners in this venture include Palantir Technologies, Airbus, Japan's Mitsubishi, and Canada's MDA Space. Voyager owns 67% of the JV, Airbus 30.5%, while Palantir, Mitsubishi, and MDA own less than 1% each. Hilton and Northrop Grumman are non-equity "strategic" partners performing various roles in the venture, and SpaceX is under contract to launch the space station aboard its Starship launch vehicle in 2029.

Voyager notes that its space station concept features a "proven metallic habitat design" that can "be deployed and achieve initial operational capability in a single launch on SpaceX's Starship." This single module, says Voyager, will replace "approximately 45% of the pressurized volume of the U.S. Segment (non-Russian) of the ISS." Two launches should therefore essentially replace the entire working volume of the U.S. portion of the space station.

And here's the best part: Whereas ISS cost $100 billion to build, Voyager said it expects to build and launch its Starlab for "approximately $2.8 billion to $3.3 billion."

How to value the Voyager IPO

That's a lot cheaper than the original recipe ISS cost. It's also a lot less cash than Voyager has on hand (just $175.5 million at last report), which explains why Voyager must IPO to raise the cash it needs to build Starlab.

The bigger question for investors is: Should you help them out with that, by handing over your cash to Voyager at the IPO? And that's a question of valuation.

Voyager generated $136.1 million in revenue in 2023, then grew its revenue 6% to $144.2 million in 2024. Much of this money has come from NASA, the company's largest customer, accounting for 25.6% of 2024 revenue.

NASA has awarded the company $217.5 million toward developing an ISS replacement. Of this, $147.2 million has already been paid out between 2022 and 2023. Including NASA, the company says it has won "approximately $800 million" in contracts and Space Act Agreements from the U.S. government, which gives you an idea of future revenue prospects. (Out of these contracts, $93.1 million is considered backlog -- work for which Voyager has "a written contract or purchase order" either in-hand or awaiting execution).

As for costs, well, those are large, significantly larger than revenue at present, resulting in a $65.6 million loss in 2024. Net losses per (still privately traded) share are about $9.88, up 88% year over year. And investors should expect losses to grow as the company spends to get Starlab completed and ready for launch. Revenue probably won't begin offsetting rising costs until 2029, when the space station launches and begins operations.

Should you buy the Voyager Technologies IPO?

Long story short, the prospectus just filed by Voyager paints the picture of a speculative investment, one with substantial revenue, but perhaps not enough to justify its projected $2 billion to $3 billion valuation at IPO.

Even at the low end of this valuation, $147 million in trailing-12-month sales implies a 13.6 price-to-sales ratio on the stock. As for P/E, well, Voyager has no earnings on which to hang a price-to-earnings valuation, and probably won't have any earnings for another four to five years.

Does all this mean you shouldn't invest in the Voyager IPO? Not necessarily. But it does mean you should make any "investment" by being fully conscious that what you're really doing is speculating on the venture not going bust. And you should probably examine your risk tolerance before doing that.

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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.