Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: Fundraising is going quite well. You saw the Janus announcement. That\u2019s significant for a few reasons. One is, it\u2019s a significant investment. Of course, we\u2019re not disclosing exactly how much. (Editor\u2019s note: It likely is on the order of $100 million.) But the more positive development on the Janus investment is that they are such a well-known, well-respected financial investor.<\/p>\n If you look at the kind of bellwether investors, Janus would be up there with a Blackstone or Blackrock or Fidelity. So it\u2019s significant not only in terms of capital contribution, but in\u2026 showing that commercial space stations are investable. This isn\u2019t money coming from the Gulf States. It\u2019s not a syndication of a bunch of $1,000 checks from retail investors. This is a very significant institutional investor coming in, and it\u2019s a signal to the market. They did significant diligence on all our competitors, and they went out of the way saying that we\u2019re far and away the best business plan, best design, and everything else, so that\u2019s why it\u2019s so meaningful.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: How much funding do you need to raise to complete Starlab?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: We currently estimate the cost to design, manufacture, and launch Starlab to be approximately $2.8 to $3.3 billion. And then if you look at what\u2019s anticipated in Phase Two in the NASA services contracts, it\u2019s about a $700 million capital plug that we need to raise in the market, and we\u2019re well on our way on that. We\u2019re not going to raise all of that now because obviously, after we win Phase Two, there will be a significant markup in valuation, and we\u2019ll have the ability to raise additional capital at that time. So we\u2019re only raising what we need at this stage of the project.<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: How are you coming as far as progress on your initial contract with NASA?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: We have our CDR (critical design review) coming up. It\u2019s December 15 to 18. We have achieved 27 milestones. We have four milestones left on our CLD Phase One contract.<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: You\u2019ve changed your partners on the project a little bit. Where are you now on that?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: We moved the structure construction from Bremen, Germany, to Louisiana. That will be constructed by Vivace. So the structure will be made in the US. We have a significant presence, as you know, in Houston. We\u2019ll have it in Louisiana. And we just added Leidos to the team, so there\u2019ll be a big Huntsville component to our test and integration as well. So the key partners right now in terms of equity ownership and the joint venture are ourselves, Airbus, Mitsubishi, Palantir, Space Applications Services, and MDA. And then additional partners who are on the team that aren\u2019t equity holders include Northrup, Leidos, and Hilton Hotels.<\/p>\n A rendering of the Starlab space station in orbit.<\/p>\n Credit: Ars<\/strong>: What is your current timeline for development?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: We\u2019re still on 2029. I don\u2019t anticipate that pushing out for any reason in the near term. Obviously, if we had a significant delay on Phase Two selection, that could impact things. You know, some people think that we have Starship risk. In my view, I\u2019m highly confident Starship will be ready to go when we\u2019re ready to launch. If it\u2019s not, based on the New Glenn upgrades that were recently announced, if they\u2019re successful in implementing those, then theoretically New Glenn could also launch us. As you know, we\u2019ve got a launch agreement with SpaceX on Starship, so that\u2019s still the plan.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: I would not consider a 2029 Starship launch date a major risk.<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: Yeah, exactly. I\u2019m not concerned about it. But there are people who are concerned. They bring it up a lot. Now, that being said, not to pick on the other players, but my understanding is Axiom has to launch on Falcon Heavy. I\u2019m not sure SpaceX is that excited to do a Falcon Heavy launch, so in my mind, that could be a potential risk for them. Maybe, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: What was your reaction to the directive that came out in August from NASA interim administrator Sean Duffy on commercial space stations?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: I was surprised at the fact that they appeared to be backing off the requirements a bit. You know, I don\u2019t know where it (the Phase Two Request for Proposals from NASA) ends up. That\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess. But if I were to bet, I would think it would be more similar to the original procurement strategy than the memo. But we won\u2019t know until it comes out.<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: Obviously, there is still an interim administrator at NASA. We had a government shutdown for a month. What\u2019s your current understanding of the timeline for the Phase Two process?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: The last information we have is that they still expected to send the RFP out by the end of the year, and then have Phase Two selection sometime late Q1, early Q2 next year. That information was mostly communicated prior to the government shutdown. So I think with the government shutdown\u2014I\u2019m guessing here because I don\u2019t know\u2014but I think you probably roll forward 45 days or so. If that\u2019s the case, we\u2019re probably looking at an RFP in January and a selection in probably in June or July. That\u2019s our best estimate based upon what we have been told.<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: We\u2019re now under five years from the International Space Station coming down. There\u2019s still a lot of work to be done for replacement. I think it\u2019s clear there are some challenges for this program, not speaking specifically about Starlab but just the general idea of commercial space stations. What advice would you have for Jared Isaacman to help make sure the CLD program is a success for NASA and the country?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: I know Jared, and I\u2019m very optimistic. He\u2019s very, very smart, a very capable person. He\u2019s pro-commercial space. Based on his testimony and just what I know about him, he believes that commercial solutions are often better than government solutions. So I\u2019m very optimistic he\u2019s going to be a transformational administrator. I think it\u2019s very good for the industry. I think the advice I would have for him on this program would be the same advice I\u2019d have for him on all programs. And it\u2019s just simply clarity\u2014clarity of mission, clarity of requirements, clarity of timeline, and the market will figure it out from there.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n And specifically on CLDs, I think it\u2019s important they make a selection sooner rather than later. In my view, that selection should not just be a Space Act Agreement. It should be tied to a services commitment on the backside as well. I think that\u2019s important to signal who the chosen commercial space station successors are, whether there\u2019s two or three. I don\u2019t think there will be one. There shouldn\u2019t be one.<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: Has the government committed enough funding to make the program a success?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: I think this is where I might deviate from our competitors a bit. I think the answer is yes. I mean, if we have a reasonable amount of capital allocated in Phase Two and service contract commitments, the rest of the capital markets will be there. We demonstrated this with Janus and our IPO, frankly. Separately, we raised $430 million on a convertible note for Voyager, in 48 hours, two weeks ago, at an interest rate of 0.75 percent. The capital is there for well-run companies that are able to communicate the future of these projects to investors.<\/p>\n So the short answer is, yes, I think there is enough funding. I think where sometimes NASA might get the story a bit wrong is that they think they need to provide all the capital for these programs. And that\u2019s not really the case. They need to provide some of the capital. But most importantly, they need to provide the signal. We saw this on launch, right? I mean, NASA didn\u2019t fund all of SpaceX\u2019s development. They\u2019re certainly not funding all of Starship\u2019s development. But what they did do is they selected Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew winners, and then SpaceX is probably the best example of being able to raise capital around that.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Ars<\/strong>: Do you think there are customers beyond NASA for these stations? I\u2019m sure you must. But who are they?<\/em><\/p>\n Dylan Taylor<\/strong>: There\u2019s huge demand, Eric. Honestly, this has been one of my surprises. Over the last 12 months, and I really want to credit Axiom on this, with the PAM (private astronaut) missions, they really pioneered this notion of sovereign astronauts outside of the ISS consortium. There\u2019s huge demand from emerging countries with space agencies that want a sovereign astronaut, that want to send their astronauts to the ISS or to a safe and qualified and NASA-approved space station. So there is a lot of demand there.<\/p>\n We\u2019re in active discussions\u2014I would say advanced discussions\u2014with a lot of sovereign astronauts, and I fully anticipate that we\u2019re going to be oversubscribed when it comes to astronaut demand. And then on the commercial capacity, on the research side, we see huge demand for our commercial research capacity on Starlab. And just to remind you, we have 100 percent of the research capacity of the ISS, and we see demand in excess of our capacity. We\u2019re striking deals as we speak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s a critical time for companies competing to develop a commercial successor to the International Space Station. NASA is working with several companies, including Axiom Space, Voyager Technologies, Blue Origin, and Vast, to develop concepts for private stations where it can lease time for its astronauts. The space agency awarded Phase One contracts several years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Slider-Image-Space-Station.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n Voyager Technologies<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n