Insider Brief:
- Airbus and Lufthansa Technik have joined forces to get astronauts ready for Starlab — the commercial space station of the future.
- The steel structures that will make up Starlab are revolutionary from a technical point of view – changing the process and structures of human spaceflight from what has been done for 30 years.
- The team plans to manufacture the space station in a shipyard in three years, rather than the more costly six years it would take to build in a clean room.
As the International Space Station (ISS) nears the end of its service life, Airbus and Lufthansa Technik have joined forces to prepare astronauts for Starlab — the commercial space station of the future. In a recent interview, Manfred Jaumann, head of low Earth orbit and suborbital programs at Airbus, gave more insights into this pioneering partnership.
“We are starting now with Lufthansa Aviation Training the concept to develop it for the training needs as well as the according infrastructure,” Jaumann revealed. “And then we will introduce this concept, and if it is then approved, then we go for the implementation in the details together with Lufthansa Aviation Training and also other partners in the world.”
Lufthansa Technik brings invaluable expertise to the table, as Jaumann explained: “Lufthansa Aviation Training is mostly known for training pilots and cabin crews all over the world, but we also have a long history of training astronauts. We have been training astronauts for the Columbus module for more than 20 years now, together with Airbus.”
Starlab itself represents a revolutionary shift in spacecraft design and manufacturing.
“From the technical point of view, Starlab is a revolutionary technical concept that does not rely on what we did for 30 years in human spaceflight,” Jaumann stated. “Building spacecrafts and space stations out of super lightweight structures with aluminum — now, it’s made out of steel.”
The efficiency of Starlab’s production process is a game-changer.
Jaumann elaborated that they would not be going into a clean room as it was much too expensive and took much too long. Instead, they would go into a shipyard and manufacture it in three years instead of six.
As Starlab nears its launch, Jaumann affirmed Airbus and Lufthansa Technik’s readiness: “I can assure you we’ll be ready to train the first astronauts whenever the space station is ready to be launched.”
With a modular training concept tailored for global accessibility, this partnership is poised to ensure a seamless transition to the new era of commercial space stations.
Featured image: Credit Starlab
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