Image: NASA
Summary
The International Space Station is expected to retire around 2030, and several US companies are building commercial stations to replace it. Payload Research’s Space Station Report sets out one of the clearest public models of how those stations might make money.1
The model shows that early stations will depend heavily on NASA, and that a market with two stations will need new revenue to work. We think much of that revenue will come from longer stays and private crews, and that stations will increasingly compete on how well people can live and work on board.
NASA as the anchor customer
Payload estimates that NASA will set aside roughly $1.8 billion a year for low Earth orbit operations, covering both transport and accommodation. With two crewed missions and one cargo mission a year, transport could fall to about $900 million, leaving roughly $900 million a year for commercial station providers.1
On the cost side, companies have said they expect to spend between $1 billion and $3 billion or more to build a station, and Payload estimates about $200 million a year in operating costs once a station is in orbit.1
The two-station problem
Payload compares a station’s annual net operating income to its build cost, borrowing the cap rate from real estate. Investors in high-risk assets typically look for a cap rate above 10 percent. In Payload’s analysis the business case closes in a one-station market, but in a two-station market, where NASA revenue is split, revenue streams have to expand significantly.1
Why habitability becomes the product
Most of the new revenue a second station needs will come from people: private astronauts, international crews, researchers and, over time, longer commercial stays. Those customers choose where to go. The quality of sleep, food, privacy, exercise and medical support on board becomes part of what they are buying.
Longer stays also raise the stakes for crew health. The changes to bone, muscle, sleep and vision that NASA tracks become more pronounced the longer a person stays. A station that can monitor and protect its crew, and show the data to prove it, will have an advantage in winning repeat customers and agency contracts alike.
What it means for the Lab
Stellar Amenities Lab builds crew health and habitation systems that station operators can buy rather than develop themselves: measurement built into the habitat, training hardware that records as it is used, and soft architecture for crew quarters. As stations compete for the same customers, these systems move from cost centers to reasons to choose one station over another.
Notes
- Payload Research, The Space Station Report: A Guide to the Future of Orbiting Infrastructure (August 2025). Revenue, cost and cap rate figures are Payload’s estimates and assumptions.