Just caught up on something worth paying attention to in the space race. Voyager Technologies' Starlab team hit a pretty significant milestone this week that puts them in an interesting position against their competitors.

So here's the backdrop: In about four years, NASA's shutting down the International Space Station. They're literally paying Elon Musk $843 million to deorbit it and let it burn up over the Pacific. But before that happens, ideally we'll have privately-built space stations ready to take over. Right now there are four teams racing to make this happen.

You've got Vast and Axiom Space doing their own independent thing. Then there's Orbital Reef, which is basically Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos' venture with Sierra Space, Boeing, and others backing it. And finally Starlab - which is the one that just moved forward this week. Starlab's the interesting one because it's got the most publicly traded companies involved. We're talking Voyager Technologies leading it, plus Northrop Grumman, Palantir, Boeing, and some international partners like Airbus and Mitsubishi.

What happened: Starlab completed its Commercial Critical Design Review with NASA. Technically NASA's just an observer here since it's a commercial project, but this is still a big deal. It's milestone number 28 toward completion, and it likely means Starlab gets a payment from NASA to keep funding the work. More importantly though, they're now transitioning from design straight into manufacturing and systems integration. That's when things start getting real.

The company's also confirmed that their single-launch space station design will have the same payload and crew capabilities as the ISS. So it's not some scaled-down version - it's the real deal. Plus they're talking about generating sustainable revenue for all the companies involved, which matters if you're looking at this from an investment angle.

Now here's where the space race gets interesting from a competitive standpoint. Axiom's actually further along - they completed their Manufacturing Readiness Review back in 2021 and are already building their first station module. Vast might be even closer, having finished their Haven-1 module and started testing it for a 2026 launch. So the two independent teams are probably closest to actually getting something in orbit.

Orbital Reef is actually behind Starlab right now. They've only completed their System Requirements Review and System Definition Review milestones, which are earlier stages than the CCDR that Starlab just finished. So with this week's announcement, Starlab's definitely making up ground in the space race.

The thing is, nobody from Starlab is saying when they actually expect to reach orbit or go operational. That's the missing piece. But they're clearly trying to accelerate - completing that CCDR is a meaningful step toward proving they can deliver.

What's interesting to me is that this whole space race is basically playing out in real-time with publicly traded companies involved. You can actually track which teams are winning by looking at these milestones. Starlab's got the most exposure for retail investors since it has the most public companies in the consortium. That's either a huge advantage or a complication depending on how you look at it.

If you're watching the commercial space station space race, Starlab just showed they're not sleeping on this. They're moving fast through the design phase and ready to actually start building. Whether that translates to being first to orbit is a different question - Axiom and Vast might have already won that race. But Starlab's definitely in the conversation now.