Back at the end of September, I did another article on the race to a private space station, this one called "The Other Other Space Race." The Other Space Race that everyone knows about is the race to start settlements on the moon; what I was referring to was the race to put a private Space Station into orbit.
In that article, I listed the companies I can easily document working on a replacement Space Station. Over the life of the blog, I've covered Axiom Space, VAST, and Blue Origin, while that post itself was about a fourth company I wasn't aware of, Voyager and their concept for a space station, Starlab.
As that post talked about, Vast has been developing a prototype of a space habitat they call Haven-1. Space.com reported today that they are in the final stages of getting ready to launch the first Haven-1 and NextSpaceflight reports that launch date to be NET May of '26. According to the article:
In the past couple of weeks, the California-based startup has completed the final weld on the primary structure of Haven-1, followed by painting. Next steps include integrating the flight article's hatch and a domed window as the company moves closer to realizing its vision of a private space station in low Earth orbit (LEO).
Haven-1 is designed to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 and, at around 31,000 pounds (14,000 kilograms), will be the largest spacecraft to lift off atop the rocket. The space station is planned to host up to four short-duration astronaut missions during its three-year lifespan, with crews of four people spending 10 days at a time aboard Haven-1 (or some other combination of missions totaling 160 astronaut days).
Vast lead astronaut Drew Feustel, spoke with Space.com at the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, Australia, in early October.
"If we stick to our plan, we will be the first standalone commercial LEO platform ever in space with Haven-1, and that's an amazing inflection point for human spaceflight," said Feustel, who's a former NASA astronaut.
Space.com author Andrew Jones comments that Vast's rise has been meteoric. They were founded in 2021 and now has around 800 employees.
Nearly all of its hardware is built in-house, with only solar arrays and thrusters outsourced. "When I joined in December 2023, we were still deciding between stainless steel and aluminum." Feustel recalled. "Now, less than two years later, the primary structure is welded."
The Haven-1 flight article has been painted. Next, key components including the hatch and domed window will be integrated ahead of pressure and load testing in Mojave, CA. Image credit to Vast, posted to X.
The company has learned a lot from SpaceX - and hired a few people away from the world's busiest launch provider.
Haven-1 contrasts with the utilitarian International Space Station and with a more human-centered design. The aesthetics, psychology and "Earth tones" of Haven-1 are designed for comfort and calm. Vast also hired a former Campbell's food developer to rethink astronaut cuisine, and has developed an inflatable sleep system that allows crew members to adjust the pressure to create a sense of simulated gravity for sleeping, rather than the tethered sleeping bag approach on the ISS. Visitors to the Vast exhibit at IAC could try out the new system.
When it launches in 2026, Haven-1 will mark a milestone, but it is also designed as a testbed for bigger plans. Haven-2 is a much more ambitious, modular project that Vast hopes could replace the ISS, which will be deorbited in 2030.
Early on when I first heard of Vast, one of the things that caught my eye is that they're aiming for a station with artificial gravity - by spinning the station.
Then I see things like this conceptual art of a Space Station made of Haven-2 modules, I don't see how they could rotate that to create the illusion of gravity. It's nothing like the giant wheel designs we've seen in sci-fi movies since the mid-60s.
An illustration of the full configuration of the Haven-2 space station, a proposed replacement for the ISS (Image credit: VAST)
I assume it would rotate around the central hub, so the axis of rotation would be 'vertical' in that picture. Each 'arm' would have gravity more like a multi-story building ('up' is towards the center, 'down' is towards the end of each 'arm').
ReplyDeleteI do wonder how they would handle docking with it spinning. Would the approaching ship match the rotation or would they try to de-spin the station for every docking call?