The International Space Station (ISS), begun in 1998 and in continuous operation for the last 25 years, is approaching the end of its life. Sometime after 2030, Russia and the United States -- the two biggest contributors to ISS' construction and operation -- intend to disassemble it and allow the majority of its modules to fall toward Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.
Not to fear, though. With help and financing from NASA, multiple space companies are now working to put private commercially run space stations into orbit to replace the ISS. And one of these teams is rapidly becoming nearly as "international" as the International Space Station itself.
The International Space Station. Image source: Getty Images.
Four teams vie to replace ISS
The Motley Fool has been following these efforts -- with a focus on the publicly traded companies that might help -- ever since Axiom Space first began talking to NASA about the idea of building an ISS replacement several years ago. And interested investors will be glad to know the number of such space stocks just keeps growing.
Earlier this year, the current lineup of teams included:
- Privately held Axiom Space.
- Privately held Vast.
- The Orbital Reef team, including Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Redwire(NYSE: RDW), and Boeing (NYSE: BA).
- The Starlab team, led by privately held Voyager Space, and including Northrop Grumman(NYSE: NOC) and Hilton Hotels(NYSE: HLT) -- both described as "strategic partners" -- Europe's Airbus(OTC: EADSY), and Japan's Mitsubishi (OTC: MSBHF).
You could also arguably include Elon Musk's company SpaceX on the Starlab team after the February announcement that it has been hired to put Starlab into orbit using its Starship rocket. It's this last team we'll be looking at here.
Starlab welcomes MDA to the team
With participants from the U.S., Europe, and Japan already on board, the only other original ISS contributors that were missing from the Starlab team were Canada and Russia. But on May 29, Starlab announced Canada's MDA Space(OTC: MDAL.F) will be joining the consortium.
MDA built the Canadarm robotic arms for external movement of cargo on both the Space Shuttle and the ISS. The company will presumably perform the same service for Starlab, once it is built, with its new Skymaker robotic arm.
The consortium says MDA's role will actually be larger than this, providing a "full range of external robotics, robotics interfaces, and robotic mission operations to the station."
What this means to investors
Every few months, it seems, Starlab announces a new partner, suggesting that if anyone has momentum on the ISS replacement project, it's Starlab. The geographically wide-ranging partners arguably give this team a key advantage.
It creates buy-in not just from multiple corporations, but also from their home governments, whose finances are considerably more vast, and which might have an interest in subsidizing their respective businesses to secure their own nations' roles in space.
So far, that's an argument only Starlab -- not Axion, Vast, or Orbital Reef -- can make.
Another advantage the Starlab team has over the competition: While Axiom has been steadily growing its expertise in orbit from running multiple missions to ISS, it's currently busy designing spacesuits for NASA's Artemis mission to the Moon.
Blue Origin -- the biggest player on Orbital Reef -- has to divide its attention on efforts to design and build a lunar lander (Blue Moon) and a new rocket ship. Also, Bezos' company is a potential buyer of the United Launch Alliance space launch company.
In contrast, the single-minded focus of Voyager Space and its team on putting Starlab into orbit could help it reach its goal faster than the other teams.
Add to this the fact that Northrop, Hilton, Airbus, Mitsubishi, and MDA are publicly traded stocks, giving investors five different space stocks to let them bet on the potential success of Starlab.
None of the five are pure plays on a space station project. Even if Starlab is chosen to replace ISS, any gains for the businesses that build it will be only incremental -- not revolutionary. That being said, it still seems obvious which of these teams investors should be rooting for.
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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
