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Huge site based in California Have big ambitions. The company aims to launch a commercial space station, Haven-2, into low Earth orbit by 2028, which would allow astronauts to remain in space after separation. International Space Station (ISS) in 2030. In doing so it is trying to give muscle of NASA It plans to develop commercial low-orbit space stations with partner companies — but the most ambitious is the grandest goal it will eventually put in space: a station with its own artificial gravity.
“We know that in weightlessness we can live for a year or more and in conditions that are not easy. Perhaps, however, the gravity of the Moon or Mars is sufficient to live comfortably for a lifetime. The only way to find out is to build stations with artificial gravity, which is our long-term goal,” said Max Haut, CEO of Vast.
Vast Space was founded in 2021 by 49-year-old programmer and businessman Jed McCaleb, creator of the peer-to-peer networks iDonkey and Overnet, as well as early and The now defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox. In mid-December the giant announced a partnership with aerospace SpaceX Launching two missions to the ISS, which will be milestones in the company’s launch plans Its first space station, Haven-1, is due in 2025. The missions, still without an official launch date, will fall under NASA’s Personal Astronaut Mission Program, through which the space agency seeks to promote the development of a space economy in low Earth orbit.
For Vast, this is part of a long-term business strategy. “Building an outpost that artificially simulates gravity would take 10 to 20 years, with the kind of money we don’t have right now,” Howt admits. “However, to win the most important contract in the space station market, which is to replace the ISS, with our founding resources, we will launch four [SpaceX] Dragon in 2025. They will stay in Haven-1 for two weeks, then return safely, demonstrating our capabilities to NASA ahead of any competitors.”
Space for one more?
What Big Space is trying to do, by showing its capabilities, is to engage with NASA Commercial destinations in low Earth orbit (CLD) program, a project the space agency launched in 2021 with a $415 million grant to support the development of private low-Earth orbit stations.
had money Initially allocated to three different projects: one from aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman, which has since exited the program; A joint venture called Starlab; and Orbital Reef, from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Vast has no contract with the US space agency, but it aims to outdo its competitors by showing NASA that it can put a space station in space better than others. The agency will choose which project stations will return in the second half of 2026.
In doing so, Vast is borrowing from SpaceX’s playbook. The vast space drew not only some of his employees and the design of equipment and vehicles Elon Musk’s The company, it said, is trying to replicate its approach to the market: to be ready before anyone else by having qualified and validated technologies and processes already in orbit. “We’re lagging behind,” Howt said. “What can we do to win? Our answer, in the second half of 2025, will be the launch of Haven-1.”
Haven-1 will have a habitable volume of 45 cubic meters, a docking port, a corridor with consumables for the crew’s personal accommodation, a laboratory and a deployable communal table next to a domed window about one meter high. On board, about 425 kilometers above Earth’s surface, the station will use Starlink laser links to communicate with satellites in low Earth orbit, technology that has been tested for the first time. Polaris Dawn mission in the fall of 2024.
