Voyager Space Holdings, Inc. (Voyager), the world’s first space-focused holding company, today announced the acquisition of Pioneer Astronautics in a cash and stock transaction. Pioneer Astronautics is a hands-on research and development company dedicated to inventing and proving new technologies to advance humanity’s reach into space and improve life on Earth. Today’s news marks the second acquisition for Voyager since its inception, furthering the company’s mission of creating the world’s first vertically integrated and publicly traded NewSpace company.
Headquartered in Lakewood, Colo., Pioneer Astronautics was founded by Dr. Robert Zubrin in 1996, and the company’s innovative team has proven successful in demonstrating a series of dramatic innovations that have the potential to open up radical new capabilities for space exploration systems. Pioneer Astronautics is currently focused on making sustainable life beyond Earth a reality, building systems that transform local materials found in space into useful resources supporting exploration and settlement. The company was recently one of four businesses selected by NASA to help mature a range of lunar technologies for sustainable exploration of the Moon under the Artemis program. Pioneer Astronautics will build and demonstrate hardware that can produce oxygen and steel from lunar regolith, helping support sustainable lunar operations.
“While the space industry has evolved immensely in the 24 years since we first launched Pioneer Astronautics, our goal of inventing and proving new technologies to advance humanity’s reach into space has remained the same,” said Zubrin, founder and president, Pioneer Astronautics. “Now, with the innovative environment Voyager provides us, we’re able to confidently accelerate toward this goal, knowing we have the support of long-term, permanent capital.”
Led by Dylan Taylor and Matthew Kuta, Voyager seeks to increase vertical integration and mission capability to enable humanity’s most ambitious projects. The firm’s portfolio now includes two Colorado-based companies, Pioneer Astronautics and Altius Space Machines. By offering an alternate solution to traditional private capital models, Voyager is uniquely tailored to support the long-term vision of commercial space companies, especially in today’s current climate.
“The space industry is entering a new era, and it’s one that will drive creativity and innovation of technology at lightning speed,” said Kuta, Voyager President and COO. “The permanent capital model of Voyager is well suited to support NewSpace companies in all types of markets to include both up and down markets. By centralizing critical business functions at the holding company level, Dr. Zubrin and his team will now have their full resources available to tackle what’s next in NewSpace. Dr. Zubrin is a true industry visionary, and we are thrilled to welcome Pioneer Astronautics to our team.”
For more information on Voyager please visit: https://voyagerspaceholdings.com/
About Voyager Space Holdings, Inc.
Voyager Space Holdings, Inc. is the world’s leading space focused holding company. Voyager’s long-term mission is to create a vertically integrated, publicly traded NewSpace company capable of delivering any mission humans can conceive. Via its operating subsidiary, Voyager Space Management Services LCC, Voyager centralizes core shared services and enables engineer founded and led subsidiaries to focus more on development of innovative products and solutions. The firm’s first-in-industry model is uniquely tailored to support the growth and scale needs of commercial space companies by offering an alternative solution to traditional private capital models and replaces them with a longer-term approach as a provider of permanent capital. Voyager also operates an industry leading subsidiary focused exclusively on intellectual property acquisition and monetization via Voyager Space IP Holdings LLC. Voyager is led by founders and space industry veterans Dylan Taylor and Matthew Kuta, with an industry leading Board of Directors that includes National Security Expert and four-star Air Force General William Shelton, leading investor Gabe Finke, and leading planetary scientist, Dr. Alan Stern. Voyager’s distinguished Board of Advisors includes four astronauts: Mike Lopez-Alegria, Karen Nyberg, Scott Parazynski and Nicole Stott, Founding Director of In-Q-Tel Paul Kaminski, Chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association Dick McConn, CEO of the Mojave Spaceport Karina Drees, and former CEO of DigitalGlobe Jeff Tarr. To learn more about Voyager Space Holdings, Inc., please visit: https://voyagerspaceholdings.com/
About Pioneer Astronautics
Founded in 1996 by Dr. Robert Zubrin, Pioneer Astronautics is an aerospace research and development company focused on creating new technologies to help open the space frontier. Over the course of its 24 year history, the company has executed over 70 highly-successful R&D programs for NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and private corporations. While its programs have covered a wide range of applications ranging from rocket propulsion to life support systems to high altitude balloon technology, Pioneer’s central focus has been in the area that NASA calls “In Situ Resource Utilization” (ISRU) but which Zubrin prefers to call “Local Resource Creation.” “There are no such things as natural resources,” says Zubrin. “There are only natural raw materials. It is technology that turns materials into resources. The Moon and Mars have no resources now. But they will have plenty once there are resourceful people there – with the right tools for the job. That’s where we come in.”
