Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime. Get the essential post-market edge, after-hours action, and opportunities. Big earnings all due in the next few minutes. The economic impact is just beginning. Closing Bell Overtime, 4 p.m. Eastern, CNBC. Voyager Technology is sharing more details about the Starlab space station, with CEO and Chairman Dylan Taylor taking CNBC inside the high-fidelity mock-up being put through its paces at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Starlab is the significant upgrade in US technology in low Earth orbit. And if you think about what we're taking advantage of, it's really this larger heavy lift rocket that's being developed, whether that's Starship produced by SpaceX or whether it's New Glenn produced by Blue Origin. We're essentially taking advantage of that larger rocket fairing and the larger heavy lift capability. And with that, you can create a much larger diameter and a much larger volume. So in a single launch to orbit, you can essentially reproduce 100 percent of the research volume of the ISS today. Voyager and its growing roster of partners have been developing Starlab for years, racing to bring the commercial space station online in low Earth orbit before the end of the decade, which is when the International Space Station is set to be retired. Palantir Airbus and Northrop Grumman are investors, and Mitsubishi recently signed on as a customer. The space and defense tech company went public last June, and shares of VOYG are trading just below the $31 IPO price. On this episode, Voyager's Dylan Taylor on data centers in space, growing lunar ambitions, and what SpaceX IPO could mean for the sector. I'm Morgan Brennan, and this is Manifest Space. Joining me now, Dylan Taylor, the CEO and chairman of Voyager Technologies. technologies. And Dylan, it is great to speak with you as always. A lot to cover here, but I do want to start with Starlab, which you gave CNBC a special tour of, specifically the mock-up that is at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. So perhaps let's start there on the significance of Starlab. Yeah, well, thanks, Morgan. It's great to be with you as always. You know, Starlab is the significant upgrade in U.S. technology in low Earth orbit. And if you think about what we're taking advantage of, it's really this larger heavy lift rocket that's being developed, whether that's Starship produced by SpaceX or whether it's New Glenn produced by Blue Origin. We're essentially taking advantage of that larger rocket fairing and the larger heavy lift capability. And with that, you can create a much larger diameter and a much larger volume. So in a single launch to orbit, you can essentially reproduce 100% of the research volume of the ISS today. And of course, we're using 2030s technology, not 1980s technology. So it's really a step up and advancement for microgravity research and other technologies we'll develop in low Earth orbit. And so having a mock-up at Johnson Space Center enables what? And perhaps just as importantly, what is the timeline to get the real one launched to orbit? So, Reel One 2029 is the announced date, and we're still on target for that. We've achieved 27 technical milestones with NASA. We just completed our critical design review in December. We're waiting back for confirmation from NASA that we've passed that. So, we're on time, on budget, ready to go to deliver in 2029. Really, the mock-up does a couple of things. One is you're able to get people into the mock-up, including professional astronauts customers researchers and they can make modifications in real time if you will in terms of suggestions on how we might be able to redesign or tweak the interior of the space station for optimizing the use cases. So that's one area. The second is really to demonstrate to investors, to media professionals like yourself, even the public, Building 9, where this is at, is right next to the International Space Station mock-up, right next to the Starliner mock-up, right next to the Blue Origin Lunar Lander mock-up. So I think it allows people to imagine, you know, what's coming next. You know, this new generation of hardware that's really going to redefine the next space age. Yeah. And certainly a commercial space station from a private entity, Voyager. But you are collaborating with NASA on this? Yeah. So we were one of the so-called phase one winners for the CLD program, that's commercial Leo destinations. There were three other competitors in that, one of which Northrop Grumman is now part of our team. So if you look at the consortium that we put together, Starlab, of course, is the corporation that we formed. That's the name of the project. That's the name of the company. Voyager is the largest shareholder, controlling shareholder. And then you have Airbus, Mitsubishi, Palantir, and several others, including professional investors, I should mention, like Janice Henderson, involved in the project. And so we've talked about it before, but what a commercial space station can enable in terms of research, in terms of business, in terms of other types of innovation from space? Yeah, so think of microgravity really as a magic laboratory, Morgan. I know it sounds science fiction-y, but in microgravity, you can do things that you literally can't do here on Earth. So, for example, protein crystal formation, protein folding, manufacturing of semiconductor wafers and other technologies that allow you to do things that under the convection and gravity, weight of gravity, you just literally can't do here on Earth. And so this research has been going on the International Space Station for 20 plus years now. What's been the limiting factor is really lab space, if you will, and not only that, astronaut time. So in a commercial space station, you can not only take this research and advance it, but you can commercialize it. And that's really the promise for the low-Earth orbit microgravity space stations like Starlab. I mean, there's obviously so much focus now on this idea, this promise of AI data centers from space. How do space stations such as Starlab factor into that? Yeah, we'll definitely have a factor that will apply to data centers as well. Well, a little known fact, Voyager actually has its own cloud compute device on the International Space Station today. We acquired a company called Leo Cloud that has a device called Space Edge, which is essentially a prototype that's been installed on the International Space Station for about four months now. So we're already playing in this area. We're big believers in the technology maturing and our ability to generate data in space and process data in space. This is part of the reason we're partnered with Palantir, is to do more computing at at the edge where data is being collected. So think of Starlab as the ability to have a data center in space, because you have large power on a space station that you wouldn't have on a satellite. But also think of Voyager technologies as being really right in the middle of the data center build out, because the other technology we have that's relevant is laser communication. And when you talking about processing and transmitting a ton literally and figuratively of data you need technologies to do that And really the only way to do it at that volume is laser communication which is a key technology that we have in-house. What does it take for the capabilities, this idea of data centers in space, for that capability to actually mature? I mean, are we looking at a timeline seriously of just a couple of years? A couple of years is aggressive. So there are a couple of things. Heavy lift rocket, right, which Elon has more or less cracked the code on. we've got to get Starship flying with the cadence that we're all expecting. But assuming we have that, then the next thing to really solve is the radiation problem. And that's really the cooling problem, if you will, with data centers in space. It's counterintuitive, but it's hard to actually cool things in space because there's no medium to transmit hot to cold. So essentially, all heat dissipation has to happen via radiation, which means you need to have a radiator pointing away from the sun to do that. So the physics of that are being worked on, and essentially that's got to be refined. And really where that matters, Morgan, is how big you can build a data center node. So if you want to build a large data center node, you've got to figure out a way to radiate that heat away. What I think Elon's focused on, SpaceX is focused on, is doing more of a mesh network. So the form factor would be more the size of a Starlink satellite. a bit easier of a problem to solve from a heat dissipation standpoint. But those are really the technologies that need to be refined to make this a reality. Well, while we're on the topic, obviously a lot of focus on the fact that XAI and SpaceX have now merged, mega merger, if you will, and that we could get a SpaceX IPO, which could be the largest listing in history as soon as this summer. What do you think it means for the broader industry? I think it's positive for the space industry in general. I think it's going to bring a lot of attention to the industry. Certainly not only retail interest, but I think global interest. As you mentioned, it's predicted to be the largest IPO in history, so that's going to be a global event for sure. So I think it'll be very bullish for the industry. I think people will take a close look at who are some of the other key players who will benefit with this large, for example, data center build-out. We're focused also, in addition to low-Earth orbit, on Lunar. And Lunar, of course, has a big push with this administration, with the Artemis program. So I think a lot of investors will like what they see once they start focusing on the space industry in specific. And you've unveiled just in the last couple of days, you know, a push, an initiative from Voyager where lunar is concerned. You've also announced a partnership around lunar infrastructure. So how, what does that mean for the company and how does that play out amid this growing moon ecosystem, if you will. Right. So the way we see space is there's really three domains that you need to master to be a space exploration company in the future. The first is low Earth orbit, which we're focused on with Starlab. The second is the lunar environment. And the final is Lagrange, right? These are these larger, so-called Lagrange in points, stable orbits out further than the moon. So for example, L2, about a million miles from Earth, is where the James Webb Telescope is. So we have strategies to focus on LEO, lunar, and Lagrange. The lunar is really, really important. So with the White House executive order, really what we're doing is we're going from flags to, and boots on the ground, to actual infrastructure, right? We're going back to the moon, but we're going back to stay. So in that context, we think it's really, really important to figure out the habitation part of the equation And that why you mentioned the partnership we announced with MaxSpace MaxSpace is doing inflatable expandable habitation modules for LEO lunar and for deep space And we think that's a really important technology for all three of those domains. And so that's why we chose to partner with MaxSpace on that. So longer term, how do you see this space economy developing? and what does it take to get humans on the moon full time and then looking towards Mars and further out? Right. So if you look at low Earth orbit, where the space stations are going, think of, and of course, the data centers, think of that as being commercialized fully, right? Think of that as, you know, near term, like the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in commerce, right? Lots of container ships going back and forth, lots happening, lots of commercial potential there. the frontier then moves to the moon, right? The moon is the harder piece to crack. And what we're gonna do there is return with humans, right? Artemis II is about an out and back mission. And then Artemis III ultimately is landing boots on the ground and getting humans back on there. But if you look at the longer term strategy, it's really about building infrastructure on the moon. The ability to generate power, the ability to take advantage of resources on the moon, live off the land, so to speak. We have core technology that mitigates dust coatings, which is really important, difficult design parameter for the moon, but we also have technology to extract water from moon regolith. So we'll be leaning into that technology portfolio to make sure we can contribute to that problem that needs to be solved. But then ultimately what I mentioned earlier applies, which is lunar habitation. So it's like, where are people gonna live and work? How are we gonna actually build the infrastructure that we need so that we can go back to the moon to stay. And then if you look at the lunar environment, that becomes a waypoint, an outpost, if you will, for deeper space. Not only these Lagrangian points I mentioned earlier, but of course ultimately Mars, which I know is also a long-term focus of the administration and of course of SpaceX. So you also have a big defense portfolio here too, and we know defense spending continues to grow both domestically and abroad. How does Voyager take advantage of that? Yeah, so we're playing very critically into Golden Dome. We have propulsion technology that allows you to make your missile defense system more accurate. And so that's a really important technology for what's happening with the Golden Dome build-out. So that's one key area. We also do optical navigation and control. That's also really important to orient not only missile defense assets but satellites in space as well. So I think we're very well positioned, Morgan, for the increase in defense spending. And, you know, we'll continue to lean into advanced technology, which is really our ethos, right? What's at the leading edge of technology? How do we develop it? How do we commercialize it? And then how do we apply it to these really important mission-critical problems that the government is looking to solve, government and commercial customers? Dylan Taylor of Voyager, thank you so much for joining me. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space. Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan. 23rd.
