Joint Investment Agreement Reached by UND, Voyager Technologies
Enables the Integration of Early-Stage Technologies Into Starlab
At a ceremony held Monday in Washington, DC, a joint investment agreement was signed by the University of North Dakota (UND) and Voyager Technologies. UND is a leading institution for national security and aerospace education, and its Space Studies Department is the oldest and largest in the nation. The university is the first school to join the U.S. Space Force’s University Partnership Program and is the only university to house a NASA-funded lab for designing and constructing space and planetary surface exploration suits.
“Voyager’s partnership with the University of North Dakota represents a powerful convergence of academic research and commercial execution.”
Matt Kuta, Voyager
U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), chair of the Senate Armed Services (SASC) Airland Subcommittee, hosted UND President Andrew Armacost, Vice President Scott Snyder and Voyager President Matt Kuta at the event to celebrate the partnership between UND and Voyager. The agreement follows the introduction Cramer made between Voyager and UND to identify joint research and development opportunities.
“The day the White House called me as a freshman member and asked if I’d be willing to carry the ball and create the Space Force, I thought they must have gotten the wrong number. But then I thought about how our state has the University of North Dakota and this world class aerospace and flight school, and people who innovate with great knowledge and experience,” Senator Cramer said. “The relationships I take the most satisfaction from are when I bring businesspeople to the University of North Dakota, when I show investors the community, and when I expose them to an incredible workforce and training. The high-end, high level research institution is training workers for the future and the juxtaposition of the people who hire, invest, and build things, and students, researchers, and workers is the most exciting thing to me. I’m thrilled to be able to bring University of North Dakota officials and Voyager’s leadership here to sign this agreement.”
“UND has always been a launchpad for innovation,” said UND President Andy Armacost. “This collaboration underscores our commitment to advancing spaceflight and national defense, not only extending our impact from the classroom to real-world application but preparing the future commercial space economy’s workforce.”
“Voyager’s partnership with the University of North Dakota represents a powerful convergence of academic research and commercial execution,” said Matt Kuta, president of Voyager. “We’re expanding our ability to enhance crewed missions and long-duration Starlab spaceflight while also strengthening U.S. leadership across both civil and defense sectors.”
The Joint Investment Agreement formalizes the partnership and builds a foundation for breakthroughs in pursuit of space dominance by establishing a framework for accelerating end-product deployment in targeted areas such as human spaceflight, planetary habitats and orbital operations research. The partnership streamlines the use of innovative rapid prototyping and leverages shared access to UND facilities. Additional partnership work includes improving space policy and governance issues.