Vast Space, based in California has 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 the space station is decommissioned. International Space Station (ISS) in 2030. In doing so, it is trying to impose itself from NASA plans to develop commercial low-orbit space stations with partner organizations, but most ambitious of all are Vast Space’s goals for what it will ultimately put in space: a station with its own artificial gravity.
“We know that in weightlessness we can live for about a year and in conditions that are not easy. Perhaps, however, lunar or Martian gravity is enough to live comfortably for a lifetime. The only way to find out is to build artificial gravity stations, which is our long-term goal,” says Max Haot, CEO of Vast.
Vast Space was founded in 2021 by Jed McCaleb, a 49-year-old programmer and businessman, creator of the peer-to-peer networks eDonkey and Overnet, as well as the first and now-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox. Vast Space announced in mid-December a partnership with EspaceX to launch two missions to the ISS, which will mark important milestones in the company’s launch plan its first space station, Haven-1, later in 2025. The missions, still without an official launch date, will be part of NASA’s private astronaut mission program, through which the space agency wishes 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 mimics gravity will take 10 to 20 years, as well as an amount of money we don’t currently have,” admits Haot. “However, to win the largest contract in the space station market, replacing the ISS, with our founder’s resources, we will launch four people on a (SpaceX) Dragon in 2025. They will remain on board of Haven-1 for two”. weeks, then return safely, demonstrating to NASA our capabilities before any competitor.
Room for one more?
What Vast Space is trying to do, by showing its capabilities, is to get involved in NASA projects. Commercial destinations in low Earth orbit (CLD), a project that the space agency inaugurated in 2021 with a $415 million grant to support the development of private stations in low Earth orbit.
The money was initially allocated to three different projects: one from aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman, which has since left the program; a joint venture called Starlab; and Orbital Reef, from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Vast does not have a contract with the US space agency, but it aims to get ahead of its competitors by showing NASA that it can send a space station into space before those others do. The agency will choose the project station to support in the second half of 2026.
In doing this, Vast is borrowing from SpaceX’s playbook. Not only has Vast Space attracted some of its employees and the design of equipment and vehicles from That of Elon Musk company, it also tries to reproduce its approach to the market: to be ready before everyone else, by having technologies and processes already qualified and validated in orbit. “We are lagging behind,” says Haot. “What can we do to win? Our response, 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 consumable resources for the crew’s personal quarters, a laboratory and a deployable common table installed next to a window in the shape of a dome about one meter high. On board, approximately 425 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, the station will use Starlink laser links to communicate with satellites in low Earth orbit, a technology that was first tested during the study. Polar Dawn mission in fall 2024.