UNITED STATES: In a historic announcement, Vast, a pioneering space technology company, has revealed its plans to launch the world’s first commercial space station, Haven-1. The station will be found on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to low-Earth orbit in August 2025 and will act as an independent crewed space station before being connected to a larger Vast space station.
The first human spaceflight mission to Haven-1, Vast-1, will follow shortly after the station’s launch. While orbiting Earth, the four-person crew will dock with Haven-1 for up to 30 days. This is the first time in history that a commercial space station firm has a launch agreement for its space station and a human spaceflight mission visiting from Earth.
Vast’s CEO, Jed McCaleb, expressed excitement about the company’s long-term vision of launching bigger, artificial gravity space stations in Earth orbit and beyond. “We are grateful to SpaceX for this inspiring relationship, which symbolises the initial stages towards Vast’s long-term goal,” he said.
SpaceX’s Senior Vice President of Commercial Business, Tom Ochinero, also spoke about the significance of this partnership, saying, “The future of low-Earth orbit is a commercial rocket carrying commercial astronauts to a commercial space station, and with Vast, we’re taking another step towards making that future a reality.”
For the first voyage to Haven-1, Vast sells up to four crewed tickets. Private persons working on scientific and charitable endeavours and national and international space agencies, are anticipated clients. SpaceX will also provide emergency readiness training, spacesuit and craft ingress and egress drills, crew training on the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft, and partial and complete mission simulations, including docking and undocking with Haven-1 for a return to Earth.
The Haven-1 space station will feature compatible docking with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, enabling commercial Dragon spacecraft human spaceflight missions to extend their on-orbit duration for up to 30 days for four astronauts. The station will also provide up to 150 kg of preloaded cargo mass, 1000 W of power, 24/7 connectivity, and chances for science, research, and in-space manufacturing.
The station will be entirely self-sufficient, offering all necessary life support services and consumables for the duration of the mission, along with privacy and schedule management for the crew, a sizable window dome for watching and taking pictures, always-on internet through onboard Wi-Fi, and space to move around and rest.
Vast’s long-term objective is to construct a 100-meter-long multi-module artificial gravity space station that will be launched by SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle. The enterprise intends to investigate doing the first artificially rotating gravity experiment on a commercial space station with Haven-1.
Vast is a pioneer in space habitation technologies, founded in 2021, focusing on expanding humanity across the solar system. For people to live and operate in space for extended periods without experiencing the negative consequences of zero gravity, the company is building a top-tier team to construct the first low-cost crewed station with artificial gravity.
With the announcement of Haven-1, Vast is taking a major step towards realising its long-term vision of making space habitation a reality.
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