SpaceX's Starship To Launch 'Starlab' Private Space Station In Late 2020s

SpaceX's Starship rocket has been selected by Starlab to launch its private space station into orbit. 'SpaceX's history of success and reliability led our team to select Starship to orbit Starlab,' Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, said in a statement. 'SpaceX is the unmatched leader for high-cadence launches, and we are proud Starlab will be launched to orbit in a single flight by Starship.' Space.com reports: Today's announcement didn't give a target launch date. But NASA and Starlab's developers want the four-person commercial station to be up and running before 2030, when the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to cease operations (though that retirement date is apparently not set in stone). The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, capable of hauling up to 150 tons to low Earth orbit. It will send the fully outfitted Starlab up in just one launch, as Taylor noted above.

'Starlab's single-launch solution continues to demonstrate not only what is possible, but how the future of commercial space is happening now,' Tom Ochinero, senior vice president of commercial business at SpaceX, said in the same statement. 'The SpaceX team is excited for Starship to launch Starlab to support humanity's continued presence in low Earth orbit on our way to making life multiplanetary,' Ochinero added.

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