By Kurtis Archer | 2025-04-11

American aerospace company Vast plans to launch its first orbital space station, Haven-1, as early as May 2026, the company said, aiming to create a cutting-edge space lab for private and government missions in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Meanwhile, the company is already working on Haven-2, which it hopes will succeed the International Space Station (ISS).

Haven-1 is designed to support missions lasting up to two weeks, with a standard duration of 10 days but capable of extensions to 30 days. The station will accommodate a crew of up to four astronauts, who will be transported aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

It will feature crew quarters, a domed observation window, a laboratory, a common area and other amenities. Vast is building the station for an orbital lifetime of three years. It will have SpaceX Starlink for connectivity.

The company will use the station to conduct advanced science, research and in-space manufacturing. The Haven-1 Lab will be the first commercial microgravity research, development and manufacturing platform in orbit.

Powering Haven-1 will be 12 solar panels, each generating 1.1kW of electricity, for a total output of 13.2kW.

Vast is modeling the station's payload systems after those used on the ISS and Space Shuttle, ensuring compatibility with existing space infrastructure.

Ambitious plans

Vast has ambitious goals for Haven-1.

The company aims to demonstrate the first successful commercial space station, positioning itself to compete for NASA's Commercial LEO Destination (CLD) contract -- the program intended to develop the ISS's successor.

Ultimately, Vast hopes to pioneer technologies that will enable long-term human habitation beyond the solar system.

Vast CEO Max Haot spoke at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics ASCEND conference in 2024 about the company's hopes of working with NASA on the ISS's replacement.

"Haven-1 is our demonstration to show NASA we are the best potential awardee that they could have," he told SpaceNews at the conference. "That obviously includes building a human-rated space station and working with SpaceX on bringing crew, but also includes the payload and the science."

"We concluded that the best way to do that would be to work with all of the companies that have built a lot of experience getting payloads to ISS," Haot said.

Commercial capabilities

One of the partnerships Vast has announced is with Redwire Space, whose chief growth officer, Mike Gold, spoke at the conference too.

"If you had a single laboratory, you could only do a limited number of experiments and progress would be slow," he said. "This is why opening up new platforms, new capabilities, new opportunities, is important to realize the gains that began on the ISS."

"The ISS is an extraordinary platform, but it was not established to support commercial operations," Gold added. "Haven-1, on the other hand, has that built into its DNA. So, we'll have the opportunity to demonstrate business in a way that doesn't exist on ISS."

Haot emphasized the benefits of Haven-1's commercial capabilities.

"The fact that we are fully commercial with a lot less restrictions and processes than the ISS means you might do new things that you can't do on the ISS," he said. "At the very least, it's more flight opportunities."

Crew selection for the first mission is under way and SpaceX will provide training on Falcon 9 and Dragon once officials have chosen the astronauts.

The training will include emergency preparation and spacesuit and spacecraft exercises, as well as mission simulations that include docking and undocking tests.

Vast hopes eventually to develop a 100-meter-long multi-module spinning space station that will be launched by SpaceX's Starship, providing users with artificial gravity. The company also aims to conduct the first-ever spinning artificial gravity test with the Haven-1 space station.

Haven-2

At the same time, Vast is working on the development of Haven-2, which will be ready for crews and scientific research after the planned 2028 commissioning of its first module, with plans for adding another module about every six months.

Haven-2 will represent many upgrades from Haven-1, and will eventually include several more modules, with the station's configuration set for completion in 2032.

"Our goal is that some of the last four modules can be developed with international partners," Haot said in an interview with Astrospace last October. "In this representation, they're all Vast modules, but we're designing them so that eventually four can be from interested international partners."

"This is Haven-2. But the key is that Haven-2 starts with a first module, which is based on Haven-1 and will allow America and its partners to have a space station before the ISS is retired in 2028," he explained.

When Vast finishes building Haven-2 in 2032, it will exceed the capabilities of the ISS and any other stations that competing companies or rival governments may have in orbit by that time, Haot expects.

Vast will be competing with companies like Blue Origin, Starlab Space and Axiom Space for CLD contracts with NASA.

Reaching new milestones

NASA's CLD program seeks to advance space station opportunities as the agency prepares to transition away from the ISS, which is nearing the end of its lifetime.

Last year, when speaking of CLD agreements, Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at NASA headquarters, said, "These new milestones will be of immense value to NASA and the partners, and will help ensure we have a smooth transition from the International Space Station to commercial destinations."

"The milestones target key technology and risk reduction areas of our partners' designs. The milestones also include additional hardware testing which is critically important to any spaceflight development effort," he said. "In addition, each new milestone will be an opportunity for NASA to gain further insight into our partners' progress and technical designs."

Angela Hart, manager of the CLD Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, expressed similar satisfaction with the agency's commercial partners.

"We continue to see an immense amount of dedication from our partners," she said in January 2024. "The agency is committed to continuing to work with industry with the goal having one or more stations in orbit to ensure competition, lower costs, and meet the demand of NASA and other customers."