ARS Technica by Eric Berger - 2/1/2024
"Building and integrating in space is very expensive."The Starlab commercial space station will launch on SpaceX's Starship rocket, officials said this week.
Starlab is a joint venture between the US-based Voyager Space and the European-based multinational aerospace corporation Airbus. The venture is building a large station with a habitable volume equivalent to half the pressurized volume of the International Space Station and will launch the new station no earlier than 2028.
"SpaceX's history of success and reliability led our team to select Starship to orbit Starlab," Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, said in a statement. "SpaceX is the unmatched leader for high-cadence launches and we are proud Starlab will be launched to orbit in a single flight by Starship."
Fitting in a big fairingStarlab will have a diameter of about 26 feet (8 meters). It is perhaps not a coincidence that Starship's payload bay can accommodate vehicles up to 26 feet across in its capacious fairing. However, in an interview, Marshall Smith, the chief technology officer of Voyager Space, said the company looked at a couple of launch options.
More:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/by-launching-on-starship-the-starlab-station-can-get-to-orbit-in-one-piece/
