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California-based Vast Space have big ambitions. The company aims to launch a commercial space station, Haven-2, into low Earth orbit in 2028, which will allow astronauts to remain in space after the decommissioning of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2030. In doing so, it tried to muscle in on at 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 eventually put into space: a station with its own artificial gravity.
“We know that in weightlessness we can live a year or more, and in conditions that are not easy. Perhaps, however, the lunar or Martian weight is enough to live comfortably throughout life. The only way to find out is to build stations with artificial gravity, which is our long-term goal,” said Max Haot, CEO of Vast.
Vast Space was founded in 2021 by 49-year-old programmer and entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, the creator of peer-to-peer networks eDonkey and Overnet, as well as early and now defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox. Vast Space announced in mid-December a partnership with SpaceX to launch two missions to the ISS, which will be milestones in the company’s launch plan the first space station, Haven-1, later in 2025. The missions, which do not yet have an official launch date, will fall under NASA’s private astronaut mission program, where the space agency wants to promote economic development in space in low Earth orbit.
For Vast, it’s part of a long-term business strategy. “Building an outpost that artificially simulates gravity will take 10 to 20 years, as well as the amount of money we don’t have right now,” Haot admitted. “However, to win the most important contract in the space station market, which is to replace the ISS, with the resources of our founder, we will launch four people on a (SpaceX) Dragon in 2025. Stay they will be in Haven-1 for two weeks, then return safely, showing NASA our capability before any competitor.
Room for One More?
What Vast Space is trying to do, by demonstrating its capabilities, is getting involved with NASA Commercial Destinations in Low Earth Orbit (CLD) program, a project inaugurated by the space agency in 2021 with a $415 million grant to support the development of private low-Earth orbit stations.
The money is first allocated to three different projects: one from the aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman, which has since exited 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 outperform its competitors by showing NASA that it can put a space station in space first. The agency will choose which project station to restore in the second half of 2026.
In doing so, Vast borrowed from SpaceX’s playbook. Not only does Vast Space take some of its employees and design equipment and vehicles from by Elon Musk company, it also tries to replicate its approach in the market: to be ready before anyone else, by having technologies and processes qualified and proven in orbit. “We’re late,” Haot said. “What can we do to win? Our answer, in the second half of 2025, is the launch of Haven-1.
Haven-1 has a habitable volume of 45 cubic meters, a port port, a corridor with available resources for the personal accommodation of the crew, a laboratory, and a deployable communal table placed next to a domed window about a meter high. On board, about 425 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, the station will use Starlink laser links to communicate with satellites in low Earth orbit, a technology first tested during the Polaris Dawn mission in the fall of 2024.
