The Starlab Space Station Team Just Keeps Growing

RIP ISS. In 2030, NASA plans to terminate the International Space Station, hiring Elon Musk to push the station to a fiery death, out of orbit and down toward Earth to burn up in the atmosphere. Four separate teams of space companies are currently angling to replace ISS after its demise.

It's already clear which one will succeed.

Image source: Getty Images.

Four space stations, four teams

Just to bring you up to date, the four sets of companies proposing to build new private space stations include:

• Axiom Space and Vast Space, each operating independently and going it solo.
• Orbital Reef, a joint venture led by Blue Origin, but also including partners Sierra Space, Redwire, and Boeing.
• And then there's Starlab.

Four teams, one winner

With Orbital Reef being led by Blue Origin, a space company backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' billions, you might expect it would be leading this race. Blue Origin, however, is famously busy competing with SpaceX to win contracts for lunar exploration right now, and also juggling multibillion-dollar efforts to build a satellite internet constellation at the same time as it develops a new space rocket.

Which is to say, Blue's a bit distracted at the moment.

In contrast, the Starlab team is laser-focused on the space station race and making great strides as it assembles an international coalition of companies to help build the thing. Just last month, Starlab added a new defense contractor to its team, Leidos (NYSE: LDOS).

Leidos joins an already large number of companies contributing various parts and services to the effort, ranging from newly public Voyager Technologies (NYSE: VOYG) (arguably the leader of the group) to Hilton Worldwide, Northrop Grumman, and Palantir from the U.S., as well as Canada's MDA Space, Europe's Airbus, and Japan's Mitsubishi.

Barely a week after Leidos joined up, Starlab announced a new member of the coalition: Janus Henderson Group (NYSE: JHG), a leading global asset manager, which says it will make "a strategic investment in Starlab Space" (i.e., cash).

"We have strong conviction that Starlab has the best design, lowest cost profile, and most compelling business model of any of the contenders vying to replace the ISS after its de-orbit in 2030," argues Janus. As a "U.S.-led global partnership," it's furthermore unique among the contenders vying to replace ISS, and arguably "more attractive," not only to NASA but to international space agencies for that reason.

Get to know Janus

Janus advertises itself as "investing in a brighter future together," and the company states that it manages assets worth approximately $40 billion. It's not clear how much of this money Janus will be investing in Starlab's future. But the simple fact that Janus controls so much financial firepower means the company may offer a more significant contribution to the project's success than Janus's $6.8 billion market cap (the third smallest of the Starlab partners) might suggest.

It's also notable that while Starlab has attracted strategic investment from only a relatively small player like Janus so far, archrival Orbital Reef hasn't yet attracted a similar investment from... anybody. (Well, anybody other than Jeff Bezos.)

Who's biggest, who's best

The combined market capitalizations of several companies making up the Starlab team were already approaching $900 billion. Janus joining up may put the team over the top on that valuation, and a bit closer to a perhaps insurmountable $1 trillion valuation on the combined team.

Even Jeff Bezos will struggle to match those deep pockets.

This may all seem a bit overkill for the project, which, according to Voyager, will probably cost under $3.3 billion to build and launch the Starlab space station. Still, it's better to have financing and not need it than to need it and not have it available. Adding Janus and its $40 billion in assets under management to the mix definitely makes Starlab a stronger competitor to Orbital Reef and the other companies aiming to replace ISS.

Today, it's clearer than ever that Starlab and its team will win this race. And with the lead company in the project, Voyager, priced at just 6 times sales (I consider anything under 4 times sales on a space company cheap enough to buy), now's a good time to start researching the Voyager stock with an eye to buying.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Palantir Technologies, and Redwire. The Motley Fool recommends Boeing and Leidos. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.