Canadian company MDA Space has joined the Starlab Space joint venture, enhancing the project's capabilities for developing a commercial space station. MDA Space will contribute its expertise in space robotics to the partnership, which already includes Voyager Space, Airbus Defence and Space, and Mitsubishi Corp.
MDA Space's involvement in Starlab Space includes taking an equity stake in the venture. In return, the company will provide space robotics technologies from its new MDA Skymaker line. These technologies will include robotic arms and interfaces for operations on the exterior of the Starlab space station.
Mike Greenley, CEO of MDA Space, mentioned in an interview that the specific capabilities of the system provided to Starlab will be announced later. However, they are expected to support station maintenance, manage external payloads, and accommodate visiting vehicles that need to dock with the station.
Matthew Kuta, President of Voyager Space, highlighted that Starlab's design aims to minimize external maintenance requirements. Their robotic arm will primarily facilitate docking or experiments, focusing on revenue-generating opportunities rather than construction or maintenance tasks.
Greenley noted that Starlab represents the first commercial space station customer for MDA Skymaker, which is based on the company's previous work developing robotic arms for the space shuttle and International Space Station. A version of this technology will also be incorporated into Lunar Dawn, a lunar rover project selected by NASA for its Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services program.
The partnership with MDA Space aligns with the company's broader strategy, focusing on Earth observation, communications, and living and working in space. MDA Space builds and operates Earth observation satellites and is involved in building satellites for Telesat's Lightspeed broadband constellation.
Both Greenley and Kuta emphasized that with MDA Space joining the venture, Starlab Space now has representation from all the Western partners in the ISS, including the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada. This diverse representation allows Starlab to tap into technical expertise, customer relationships, and government support from these regions.
In addition to the partnership with MDA Space, Starlab Space recently announced an agreement with The Exploration Company, a European space transportation company, for three cargo missions to and from Starlab using the Nyx vehicle. This agreement aims to diversify transportation options for Starlab and control costs.
Kuta expressed interest in having a resupply capability from Europe and mentioned ongoing discussions with the Indian space agency ISRO to use its Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft. Starlab Space also has an agreement with Northrop Grumman to use a version of its Cygnus cargo spacecraft and plans to work with SpaceX for Starship launches.