Space Stations
Companies building commercial space stations to succeed the International Space Station — orbital habitats for astronauts, research, and manufacturing in low Earth orbit.
06 Companies
Axiom Space
AAxiom Space, founded in Houston in 2016 by former NASA ISS program manager Michael Suffredini and entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, is the leading commercial human-spaceflight company, built around three lines of business: private astronaut missions to the ISS, the Axiom Station commercial space station, and next-generation spacesuits. It flew Ax-1, the first all-private crewed mission to the ISS, in April 2022, and has since flown four missions carrying 16 astronauts — most recently Ax-4 (June–July 2025), which returned India, Poland, and Hungary to human spaceflight; NASA has ordered a fifth mission (Ax-5) for no earlier than January 2027. In 2020 NASA awarded Axiom a $140 million contract to attach the first commercial module to the ISS, and in September 2022 a $228.5 million task order (under a contract worth up to $1.26 billion) to build the Artemis moonwalking spacesuit, the AxEMU — Axiom became NASA's sole suit developer after Collins Aerospace was descoped in 2024, though a NASA OIG report in April 2026 warned the suit could slip to 2031. The company hit severe financial turbulence in late 2024 — roughly 100 layoffs, voluntary 20% pay cuts, and late payments to contractors including SpaceX — followed by rapid CEO churn (Suffredini out August 2024, Ghaffarian interim, Tejpaul Bhatia April–October 2025, then NASA-veteran astrophysicist Jonathan Cirtain). In December 2024 it re-sequenced station assembly to launch a Payload Power Thermal Module first (NET 2027) so a free-flying station could form as early as 2028. Finances have since stabilized: a $100M round at a ~$2B valuation (March 2025), $100M from Hungary's 4iG (December 2025), and an oversubscribed $525M+ round closed June 2026 with Qatar Investment Authority, Type One Ventures, and MUFG Bank. With ~700 employees, Axiom launched its first two orbital data center nodes in January 2026 and is competing for NASA's Commercial LEO Destinations Phase 2 award expected in spring 2027.
4 (Ax-1 to Ax-4, 2022–2025)
$228.5M base (under contract worth up to $1.26B)
$525M+ (oversubscribed, closed Jun 2026)
~$2B (Mar 2025 round)
>$2.2B (as of Aug 2023)
~700 (Jun 2026)
700+ hours pressurized crewed test time (Nov 2025)
2 (launched Jan 11, 2026)
Vast
AVast was founded in 2021 by Jed McCaleb — the programmer-entrepreneur behind eDonkey, Mt. Gox, Ripple, and Stellar — around a long-term thesis of artificial-gravity space stations that let humans live in orbit without the health toll of weightlessness, and a near-term race to fly the world's first commercial space station. McCaleb was the company's sole backer for its first years and has said he is prepared to put up to $1 billion of his fortune into the venture. Vast came out of stealth in September 2022, acquired rocket startup Launcher in February 2023 (whose founder Max Haot became CEO in August 2023, with McCaleb moving to chairman), and in May 2023 signed SpaceX to launch Haven-1, a single-module four-crew station (45 m³ habitable volume), plus Dragon crew missions. The company has taken an incremental, hardware-rich path: it pressure-tested the Haven-1 flight primary structure beyond nominal conditions in late 2025, and its Haven Demo testbed satellite launched November 2, 2025 on SpaceX's Bandwagon-4, completed 49 test objectives validating avionics, GNC, solar arrays, propulsion, and Starlink-based communications, and executed a controlled deorbit on February 4, 2026. Haven-1 — originally targeted for August 2025, then May 2026 — entered clean-room integration in January 2026, when Vast re-baselined launch readiness to Q1 2027; the thermal control system was integrated in June 2026 and environmental testing is planned before year-end. Momentum accelerated through 2026: NASA selected Vast in February for the sixth private astronaut mission to the ISS (no earlier than summer 2027, to be commanded by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet under a two-mission agreement with France), and in March Vast closed a $500M round ($300M Series A led by Balerion Space Ventures plus $200M debt), bringing total private capital invested to roughly $1 billion across a team of 1,000+ employees. Vast also launched a 15 kW satellite-bus product line, opened Houston and Paris offices, and signed agreements with France, the UK Space Agency, ESA/Czech Republic, and others. Its nine-module Haven-2 (first module 2028, full build-out by 2032) is its bid for NASA's CLD Phase 2 ISS-successor competition, whose draft RFP was released July 6, 2026.
1,000+
~$1 billion (through Mar 2026)
Q1 2027 (Falcon 9)
4 crew / 45 m³
49 (Nov 2025 – Feb 2026 mission)
9 modules, 12 crew, 510 m³ habitable by 2032
10 slots (30 kg / 100 W each)
Voyager Technologies
AVoyager Technologies is a Denver-based defense-technology and space-infrastructure company best known for leading Starlab, the international joint venture building a commercial successor to the International Space Station. Founded in October 2019 by Dylan Taylor as Voyager Space Holdings, the company grew by rolling up twelve space and defense firms — including Altius Space Machines and Pioneer Astronautics (2020), The Launch Company, Valley Tech Systems and Nanoracks (2021), Space Micro (2022), ZIN Technologies (2023), and Estes Energetics, ExoTerra Resource and LEOcloud (2025). Through Nanoracks it owns the Bishop Airlock, the first and only permanent commercial module on the ISS, operating since December 2020. Starlab won a $160M NASA Commercial LEO Destinations award in December 2021 (later raised to $217.5M) and evolved into Starlab Space LLC, a US-led JV with Airbus, Mitsubishi Corporation and MDA Space, with Palantir supplying station software, Hilton designing crew quarters and Northrop Grumman providing Cygnus resupply. The single-launch, 8-meter-class station — with roughly half the ISS's pressurized volume — is contracted to fly on SpaceX's Starship, now targeted for 2029, and completed its Commercial Critical Design Review with NASA in February 2026, clearing the way for flight manufacturing. Voyager rebranded to Voyager Technologies in early 2025 to emphasize national security and went public on NYSE in June 2025, raising $382.8M and briefly touching a ~$3.8B valuation. Its Defense & National Security segment — solid and electric propulsion, energetics, signals intelligence and communications — is its fastest-growing business and put it on the Anduril-led team named among the Space Force's Golden Dome space-based-interceptor awardees in April 2026. In June 2026 it agreed to acquire lunar-lander developer Astrobotic for up to $300M. As of July 2026 Voyager trades near a $1.85B market cap, posted $166.4M of 2025 revenue (net loss $116.1M), guides to $230–255M for 2026 on a record $275.3M backlog, and awaits NASA's CLD Phase 2 competition, whose draft RFP was released July 7, 2026.
~$1.85B (NYSE: VOYG, Jul 10, 2026)
$166.4M (+15% YoY)
$230M–$255M
$275.3M (Q1 2026, +54% YoY)
$217.5M funded ($160M in 2021 + $57.5M in 2024)
Over $700M
2029, single launch on SpaceX Starship
CASC
SChina Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is the state-owned prime contractor for China's space program and the world's most prolific launch organization by missions flown. Wholly owned by the central government through SASAC, it develops and operates the Long March (Changzheng) rocket family — which flew its 650th cumulative mission on June 11, 2026 — along with the Shenzhou crewed spacecraft, Tianzhou cargo vehicles, the Tiangong space station, BeiDou navigation and GuoWang broadband satellites, the Chang'e lunar and Tianwen planetary probes, and China's strategic missiles. After a national-record 73 launches in 2025, CASC is targeting over 100 launches in 2026 amid an industry-wide national push toward ~140, debuted the partially reusable Long March 12B in June 2026, and saw its Tianwen-2 probe reach the quasi-moon asteroid Kamo'oalewa on June 7, 2026. On July 10, 2026 it made China the second nation ever to recover an orbital rocket first stage, when the new single-stick, partially reusable Long March 10B flew its maiden mission from Hainan and captured its booster in a sea-based net — a landmark step toward closing the reusability gap with SpaceX. It is preparing to fly Chang'e 7 to the lunar south pole no earlier than August 2026 while advancing the triple-core Long March 10 toward a crewed Moon landing before 2030.
73 (national record)
653+ (653rd on June 23, 2026)
July 10, 2026 (Long March 10B, sea-based net capture)
~1,400+
~86% of all national missions
~170,000
Wholly state-owned (SASAC)
Airbus
SAirbus is Europe's largest aerospace company, spanning commercial aircraft, helicopters, defence and space. In civil aviation it remains Boeing's only true peer at global scale and is pairing near-term production growth with longer-term work on lower-carbon aircraft technologies, future single-aisle designs and hydrogen propulsion. The company combines a mature global airliner business with broader aerospace capabilities across defence, space and rotorcraft. Q1 2026 was unusually weak — 114 deliveries (vs. 136 a year earlier), revenue down 7% to EUR 12.65B and adjusted EBIT halved to EUR 300M due to Pratt & Whitney engine shortages and Chinese delivery disruptions — but Airbus reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance of ~870 deliveries, EUR 7.5B adjusted EBIT and EUR 4.5B free cash flow, with a record commercial backlog above 9,000 aircraft. Output recovered strongly through mid-year: official figures reported July 10 showed 351 deliveries in H1 2026 (up ~15% YoY), Airbus's best first half since 2019.
EUR 73.4B (adjusted EBIT EUR 7.1B; net income EUR 5.2B)
EUR 12.65B (-7% YoY); adjusted EBIT EUR 300M (-52%)
165,294
114 aircraft (19 A220, 81 A320 Family, 3 A330, 11 A350)
9,247 aircraft
~870 commercial aircraft; ~EUR 7.5B adjusted EBIT; ~EUR 4.5B FCF (reaffirmed at Q1)
351 aircraft in H1 2026 (89 in June) — up about 15% YoY (306 in H1 2025) and the strongest first half since 2019, with 887 gross / 822 net orders logged through June. Airbus is internally targeting 900+ deliveries for the full year, above its official 870 guidance, with ~80 expected in July.
89 deliveries in June (82 single-aisle incl. 73 A320neo family + 9 A220; 7 A350 widebody); 351 delivered in H1. May had 81 deliveries / 379 gross orders.
1,000+ firm (post-AirAsia)
20,169 (surpassed 20,000 in May 2026; 7,739 are A321neos)
Blue Origin
ABlue Origin is a privately held aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos that develops reusable launch vehicles, rocket engines, lunar landers, in-space mobility systems, and satellite communications infrastructure. Its current programs span the New Shepard suborbital system, the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, the BE-4 engine family that also powers ULA's Vulcan, the Blue Moon lunar lander family, the Blue Ring spacecraft platform, and the TeraWave network. The FAA closed its NG-3 mishap investigation and lifted the New Glenn grounding on May 22, 2026 — pinning the BlueBird 7 deployment failure on a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line — but six days later, on May 28, a New Glenn exploded during a hotfire at Cape Canaveral's LC-36, destroying the transporter-erector at Blue Origin's only New Glenn pad. CEO Dave Limp said on June 2, 2026 that the rocket will fly again before year-end via an alternative vertical assembly path, with the propellant farm, water tower, a second flight-ready booster, and three upper stages intact; the Blue Moon MK1 'Endurance' cargo lunar lander has completed thermal vacuum testing at NASA Johnson and is being prepared for a launch later in 2026. Reporting in mid-May 2026 also revealed that Blue Origin is weighing its first-ever outside fundraising — Capstone Partners pegs 2026 spend at ~$4.8B against ~$28B of cumulative Bezos investment — as Limp targets a future cadence of about 100 launches a year.
~$28B since founding (~$4.8B 2026 annual spend; Capstone est., May 2026)
3 (FAA grounding lifted May 22, 2026; LC-36 pad rebuild underway after May 28 hotfire explosion; June 30 crane-based CONOPS adopted; return-to-flight targeted before year-end 2026)
38 (program paused for ≥2 years from Jan 30, 2026)
98
200+