Commercial space infrastructure company Voyager Technologies is backing lunar habitat developer Max Space with a new multimillion-dollar investment aimed at accelerating the development of expandable modules for future missions to the moon.
The companies say the partnership will help to move expandable habitat technology towards operational missions by scaling up production, strengthening engineering and integrating Voyager’s technology systems with Max’s habitat infrastructure.
“Extends human presence beyond low earth orbit (LEO) requires infrastructure that is scalable, resilient and purpose-built for durability, Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager, said in a March 9 statement. “By coupling Voyager’s integrated platform with Max Space’s extensible habitat architecture, we are accelerating the transition from demonstration missions to permanent lunar capability.”
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Max Space’s expandable habitat technology is designed to fold into a compact configuration that can fit into the payload fairings of rockets that SpaceX‘s Falcon 9. Once delivered to orbit, the moon or another planet, the structure expands to drastically increase its internal living space, offering the dual advantages of light launch mass and greater usable volume than traditional rigid spacecraft.
“Voyager’s investment is a powerful validation of our extensible habitat thesis and long legacy in orbit. Together we are building habitats designed not only to reach the moon but to stay there,” said Saleem Miyan, co-founder and CEO of Max Space.
The companies did not disclose the exact value of the investment.
Denver-based Voyager markets itself as a commercial space infrastructure innovator focused on mission services and technologies for system operations beyond low Earth orbit. The company is also developing, together with Airbus, a commercial space station called Starlabwhich NASA selected as one of several private LEO destinations intended to succeed The International Space Station (ISS) after retirement in the 2030s.
Expandable habitats themselves are not a new idea. NASA tested the concept in a demonstration in orbit with Bigelow expandable activity module (BEAM), a small inflatable test habitat that was attached to the ISS in 2016 to study the technology’s performance in room.
BEAM was built by Bigelow Aerospace, which had its own plans for large expandable space stations, but was forced to close its doors due to financial struggles at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Max hopes to scale the concept much further, creating larger space modules that support astronauts for deep space missions and long-term lunar missions.
Max and Voyager say their combined initiative is a direct response to a recent NASA announcement outlining a new roadmap for the Artemis program and the agency’s efforts to land astronauts on the moon by 2028. The Artemis program aims to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and will need a number of surface modules to sustain crews.
The companies hope their partnership helps support future lunar missions, “including cislunar mission management, surface logistics, propulsion, power systems and future surface infrastructure, and reinforces a shared vision of the Moon as an operational domain, not a temporary destination,” according to the March 9 statement.
