By BlueShift and AFP | 2026-06-12

US private space company Vast on June 2 announced an inaugural crewed mission to its planned Haven-1 station next year, kicking the race to replace the aging International Space Station (ISS) into a higher gear.

Vast is the first company to announce a crewed mission to its future station.

This is an important milestone in a new era in crewed spaceflight that is less expensive -- and less reliant on Russia, Vast CEO Max Haot told AFP.

If Haven-1 is launched into orbit as scheduled in early 2027, it will become history's first commercial space station, beating out several competitors.

It also would mark a post-ISS era for humanity's presence in space, as the West seeks independence from Russian space operations due to the war in Ukraine.

The ISS is scheduled to be deorbited in 2030, after more than 25 years of continuous use.

France's space ambitions

Vast's inaugural crewed mission to Haven-1 will include French astronaut Arnaud Prost as part of a four-member crew, in a move President Emmanuel Macron said "confirms France's space ambitions."

Prost would serve as test engineer on the first crewed mission to the station, which is expected to last two weeks.

On board Haven-1, Prost will be tasked with carrying out tests ahead of scientific experiments, which will be similar to those conducted on the ISS.

The agreement ensures France can continue its low-Earth orbit missions, building upon its prior experience of training for and participating in operational manned space missions, according to Vast.

"This astronaut mission to a private space station is a world-first," France's space agency CNES said.

Another French astronaut, Thomas Pesquet, will be sent to the ISS next year on a private Vast mission as part of a deal sealed between the company and France.

Pesquet will be the commander of the mission, which is not scheduled to launch before mid-2027. It will be Pesquet's third stay on the orbital laboratory.

The ISS mission will need to be approved by a panel of the space station's partners, which include NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Russia's Roscosmos, Japan's JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency.

If the mission is approved, it would be "a major first: no non-American has ever commanded a US capsule," the CNES said.

Pesquet said he welcomed the opportunity to return to space, adding that "for me, the long-term goal is the Artemis mission to the moon."

The ESA last year announced that three European astronauts -- German, Italian and French -- would participate in NASA's Artemis mission aiming to return to the moon by 2030.

Pesquet said he believed "the very first opportunity for the moon will be in 2029," adding that "having a mission in mid-2027 has absolutely no impact" on his lunar hopes.

Vast's big plans

For both new missions, Vast will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon 2 capsule to get the astronauts into space.

Haot said SpaceX's approach emphasized "speed and rocket reusability."

"It's a model for everyone -- and it's the future of space," he said. "If SpaceX had not succeeded in creating Dragon, Vast would not exist. And the United States and Europe would still be dependent on Russia to send humans into space."

Despite many international cooperation agreements falling apart after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States and other ISS partners have continued working with Russia on the space station.

Vast was founded in 2021 with the aim of launching the first commercial space station with Haven-1. The privately funded station will have a single module, compared to 16 currently on the ISS.

During its three years in orbit, it will "host four two-week missions," Haot said.

Vast has bigger plans for its replacement. Haven-2 will eventually have nine modules, but the company plans to deploy them gradually over time.

This will mean the modules cost "five to 10 times lower" than those for the ISS, which often exceeded a billion dollars, Haot said.

"This will allow us to increase the number of crewed flights and offer more attractive prices to our customers," he added.

"We hope to launch three modules per year for our future station -- and that at least one module will be launched by a European rocket."

The company, which plans to open its European headquarters in Paris, aims to have four modules in space by 2030, which would support six-month missions on board.

Other US aerospace companies also have plans to launch commercial space stations, including Axiom Space and Blue Origin.

Vast acknowledges it entered the race late. But the company now claims to be two years ahead of its rivals, citing contracts with NASA.