Hilton Designing Suites for Starlab Space Station

21st Sep 2022
Hilton Designing Suites for Starlab Space Station

Hilton facilities in space. Who would have thought it? It may seem like an episode of a science fiction comedy, but Hilton announced on 19th September that it had been recruited to design the suites and other facilities aboard the Starlab.

Starlab is currently being developed, with Voyager Space Holdings and American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin involved in the development and building of the facilities. Now Hilton will help them to design the sleeping quarters and even hospitality areas. 

Plans call for crewing Starlab at all times. The station will provide a base for research and industrial activities, and to ensure that the U.S. always has a presence orbiting the Earth. It should be operational by the end of the 2020s.

Starlab partnership unique, for now

This unique partnership shows that space developments bring opportunities for all sorts of different industries. As well as working on the hospitality and sleeping suites, the hotel giant will be working closely with the Voyager company on marketing, and providing “astronaut experiences”. Could it be that the partnership has an eye on commercial space tourism, too?

It certainly seems that Hilton is considering this. Christopher Nassetta, the CEO of the Hilton Group said in a statement: “For decades, discoveries in space have been positively impacting life on Earth, and now Hilton will have an opportunity to use this unique environment to improve the guest experience wherever people travel.”

The partnerships between the brands started in 2020 with a famous “cookies in space” experiment, where the ISS astronauts baked cookies on board, supported by Hilton’s DoubleTree brand.

While Voyager might be the first to develop a free-flying commercial space station, Starlab is actually one of four projects being built under NASA contracts. The fact that the ISS will be officially retired in 2030 has opened up more possibilities, and the “Commercial LEO Destinations” program was born. Starlab is the biggest of the projects, with a modular design that is intended to be added to over the years. Manufacture is due to start in 2023. 

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