Voyager Station, the first hotel in space, is planned to open in 2027. This hotel will orbit the Earth and offer guests a unique experience with lunar-like gravity. The project is led by the Gateway Foundation and built by the Orbital Assembly Corporation, known as the first big space construction company in the world.
Voyager Station will be a large rotating hotel designed to create artificial gravity. It will hold up to 440 people, including 400 guests and 112 crew members. The hotel’s ring-shaped design will spin slowly, which makes the gravity similar to one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, like on the Moon.
This means visitors can walk and move almost like they do on Earth but will also enjoy the feeling of lighter gravity. Construction is set to begin in 2026, with the hotel ready to welcome its first visitors in 2027. This project is offering a new way for people to travel and stay in space.
The hotel will offer a full resort experience in low Earth orbit. Guests can expect luxury villas, fine dining restaurants, a cinema, a spa, and a gym. The space station will have 24 modules that include living spaces, restaurants, bars, gyms, crew areas, and even research pods. The hotel plans to feel warm and inviting, using natural colors and materials instead of the usual cold, futuristic look seen in many sci-fi movies.
Tim Alatorre, the senior design architect for Voyager Station, said in an interview, “Eventually, going to space will just be another option people will pick for their vacation, just like going on a cruise, or going to Disney World.”
He believes that while space travel is expensive now, it will become more affordable in the future. “Because the overall costs are still so high most people assume that space tourism will only be available to the super-rich, and while I think this will be true for the next several years, the Gateway Foundation has a goal of making space travel open to everyone.”
The hotel will feature different types of accommodation. There will be 500-square-metre luxury villas that can be rented for a week, a month, or even permanently. These villas will be large enough for 16 people, with three bathrooms and a kitchen. In the villas, there will be smaller hotel suites of about 30 square meters, with beds for two people and a private bathroom.
Guests will be able to enjoy restaurants that aim to rival the best dining places on Earth. The Gateway Foundation promises full-service kitchens with a wide range of dishes, much like those found on luxury cruise ships or major hotels. The hotel will also have a triple-tier bar with a water feature that “will seemingly defy the laws of physics.”
The station will have a gym with seven-meter-high ceilings where visitors can enjoy low-gravity games. At night, this gym will turn into a concert venue where “the biggest musicians on Earth will rock the station as it circles the planet.” This means guests will not only get to stay in space but also enjoy entertainment similar to what they would find on Earth.
The design of the space hotel is carefully thought out to make guests feel comfortable and connected to nature. Tim Alatorre explained, “In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s Space Station 5 is a sterile, white, museum-like hotel. While it made for a futuristic feeling in the movie, in reality, it wasn’t a very inviting space. As humans, we innately connect to natural materials and colors.”
Originally, Voyager Station was planned to open in 2025, but delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic pushed the date to 2027. However, the company assures that the delay was not due to technology problems but the global situation.
Construction will begin with the central un-pressurized ring that contains the docking hub. Then, the 200-meter-wide outer ring will be built and connected with spokes to the central ring.
Soon, people will be able to book rooms and stay in a hotel orbiting Earth. The Gateway Foundation’s goal is clear: they want to make space travel accessible to everyone, not just billionaires. As Tim Alatorre said in a 2022 interview with CNN, they are “doing everything we can to make space accessible to everyone.”
For now, a three-and-a-half-day stay will cost around $5 million, but as technology improves, the price is expected to fall.
