NASA and Voyager Technologies signed an order Wednesday for the seventh private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, targeted to launch no earlier than 2028. The mission, designated VOYG-1, is Voyager’s first private astronaut mission and carries a crew of four to the orbiting outpost for up to 14 days.

“This award reflects decades of partnership with NASA, and validates our belief that the infrastructure being built in low-Earth orbit today is the launchpad for humanity’s future in deep space,” Voyager Chairman and CEO Dylan Taylor said in a statement released shortly after the award was announced. . The Denver-based company — which went public on the NYSE as VOYG in June 2025 — already operates the Bishop Airlock on the ISS, the station’s first and only commercial airlock. 

Voyager joins Axiom Space and Vast as companies contracted to operate PAM missions to ISS.

The shared thread among the three runs deeper than flying people to the ISS. Each is trying to replace it. Every company holding a NASA PAM contract is simultaneously building a Commercial LEO Destination (CLD) and using the ISS missions as a proving ground for the life-support, crew-operations, and integration experience each will need to operate its own orbital platform.

Axiom Space is the Houston-based company that holds NASA’s original 2020 commercial module contract and is scheduled to fly the first element of Axiom Station — the Payload, Power and Thermal Module — to the ISS before the end of the decade, with a habitat module following that will eventually allow the assembly to detach and fly free. Axiom closed a $350 million financing round in February and now has five PAM awards on the books. 

Vast is the hardware-rich upstart. Its Haven Demo pathfinder launched on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-4 mission in November 2025 and has since successfully demonstrated a perigee-lowering maneuver — the deorbit capability every CLD operator will need at end-of-life. Haven-1, a single-module commercial station, is targeted to become the world’s first private space station when it launches in 2027, and the company’s multi-module Haven-2 is being pitched as the long-term ISS successor. Vast’s PAM, flying no earlier than summer 2027, is explicitly intended to generate operational experience ahead of Haven-2 operations. 

Voyager is developing Starlab through a U.S.-led joint venture that includes Airbus, Mitsubishi, MDA Space and Palantir, with interior spaces designed by Hilton. The single-launch station — an 8-meter-diameter module meant to fly to orbit on a SpaceX Starship — cleared its Commercial Critical Design Review with NASA in February 2026 and is targeted for a 2028 launch. Voyager’s ISS heritage is not theoretical: the company operates the Bishop Airlock and has managed more than 2,000 ISS payloads and missions. VOYG-1 now adds crewed flight execution to that portfolio.