Max Space (Inflatable Space Habitats)

[matt19215]

Max Space is a startup that appears to be emerging from stealth. Looks like they want to make inflatable modules.

https://getmaxspace.com/

One of the co-founders is Maxim de Jong, who was previously at Thin Red Line, which supplied pressure shells to Bigelow Aerospace for its Genesis modules back in the day https://spacenews.com/41009spotlight-thin-red-line-aerospace/

Other co-founder is Aaron Kemmer, who founded Made in Space which was acquired by Redwire
A tweet from them:

Big (or shall we say Maximum?) news coming soon...

https://x.com/getmaxspace/status/1775697884064944413

Eric Berger mentioned them earlier this week:

There's another space habitat company called Max Space. They say, "Max Space can provide the equivalent cubic volume of the ISS in space for $200M — including launch — bringing the cost down by over a hundred-fold."

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1775592927550452131

[jarmumd]

I find it very interesting that all their CAD shows the Shuttle/Hubble CLA latches as their expansion system (opposite of the docking petals which are unfortunately close to their solar panels).  I would have thought that they would 1) not show anything, or 2) show a generic CBM.  The fact that they put in such a specific system implies that they have been thinking about that problem. 

[ry_spaceflight16]

Max Space will be having a press release on April 9th at the Space Symposium 2024.

Max Space (https://getmaxspace.com), a new private space company working to increase business in space by building expandable space habitats for people and storage that are high quality, high volume, and considerably less expensive to maintain and get into space.
 
Max Space is led by two entrepreneurs with a combined 40+ years of building successful space companies, including decades of experience in space station operations and inflatable modules. Leveraging 20 years of development with NASA-tested and flight-qualified space expandables, Max Space offers scalable modules for in-space habitation, manufacturing, research labs, space farms, tourism, sports, and entertainment.

Here are their socials:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/getmaxspace
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getmaxspace/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getmaxspace

[jstrotha0975]

The market is flooded with space stations.

[DanClemmensen]

The market is flooded with space stations.

Yep, and as of now the cheapest ride to space is $50 million per seat in a Crew Dragon. That is likely to limit the demand. If Crewed Starship ever flies, the seat cost will drop dramatically, but the Starship is also a better station than these inflatables. Why would you travel in a cruise ship to go live in a tent?

[ry_spaceflight16]

Here's their post.

[matt19215]

https://spacenews.com/max-space-announces-plans-for-inflatable-space-station-modules/

Raised a sub $10 million seed round, plan to launch a 20 cubic meter module on a SpaceX rideshare mission in 2025

[StraumliBlight]

Max Space appoints Kirsten Whittingham President

The first Max Space habitat is manifested to fly with SpaceX in 2026. The goal is to have a family of scalable space habitats ranging from 20 m3 to 100 m3 to 1000 m3 through 2030. The Max Space expandable architecture offers remarkable scalability, with the potential to scale up to 10,000+ m3 megastructures, which can be launched in a single flight using Starship and New Glenn, once they’re online.

[JSz]

They are only two years away from putting their module into orbit. My guess is that it will be the smallest model with a volume of 20 m3, which is only slightly larger than Bigelow's Genesis. The company's website is very poor and not much can be deduced from it, such as how they intend to commercialise their product. And two years is very little time indeed - Sierra Space has been working on its LIFE module for several years now, and its flight to orbit is announced for NET 2027.

A bit more information about Max Space is at: https://www.designboom.com/architecture/inflatable-space-habitats-max-spacex-2026-04-30-2024/.