![A rendering of Crew Dragon docking with Haven-1, a space station being developed by Vast. Credit: Vast](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/VAST-Haven-1_Docking_A2.jpg)
A rendering of Crew Dragon docking with Haven-1, an area station being developed by Vast. Credit: Vast
An area enterprise called Vast announced its plans to fly a industrial space station as early as two years from now.
Called Haven-1, this single-module outpost could turn out to be the primary free-flying industrial space station. Its launch, scheduled for no sooner than August 2025 atop a Falcon 9 rocket, can be followed shortly by the primary human visitors to the module by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft — a mission called Vast-1 — with a further crewed mission as early as 2026.
“Vast is thrilled to embark on this journey of launching the world’s first industrial space station, Haven-1, and its first crew, Vast-1,” Jed McCaleb, CEO of Vast, said in an organization statement on May 10, 2023. “We’re grateful to SpaceX for this exciting partnership that represents the primary steps in Vast’s long-term vision of launching much larger, artificial gravity space stations in Earth orbit and beyond.”
![Haven-1 would also include a large cupola window at one end of the outpost. Credit: Vast](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/VAST-Haven-1_Hero-655x368.jpg)
Haven-1 would also include a big cupola window at one end of the outpost. Credit: Vast
Billionaire cryptocurrency entrepreneur McCaleb founded Vast, based in Long Beach, California, in 2021 with a vision to develop artificial gravity space stations. The corporate acquired one other small space company called Launcher earlier this 12 months, which had been developing most of the same technologies that may be needed to construct an area habitat and maintain it in orbit.
Vast said in its May 10 announcement that this was the primary time a industrial space station company has each a contracted launch and a visiting human spaceflight mission.
“A industrial rocket launching a industrial spacecraft with industrial astronauts to a industrial space station is the long run of low-Earth orbit, and with Vast we’re taking one other step toward making that future a reality,” Tom Ochinero, senior vice chairman of Business Business at SpaceX, said in Vast’s press release. “The SpaceX team couldn’t be more excited to launch Vast’s Haven-1 and support their follow-on human spaceflight missions to the orbiting industrial space station.”
Vast can also be being advised by several former SpaceX employees, including Hans Koengsmann, who was SpaceX’s vice chairman of flight reliability before retiring in 2021.
Haven-1 is a way for Vast to launch hardware sooner and get experience operating an area station while it designs and builds more ambitious destinations, including a planned 330-foot (100-meter) “spinning stick” station within the 2030s and even larger spinning wheel habitats within the 2040s.
![An illustration of Haven-1 inside a Falcon 9 payload fairing. Credit: Vast](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/VAST-Haven1_FairingFit.jpg)
An illustration of Haven-1 inside a Falcon 9 payload fairing. Credit: Vast
The small Haven-1 is planned to be launched contained in the standard payload fairing of a Falcon 9 rocket. At about 31,000 kilos (14,000 kilograms), it is anticipated to be 12.5 feet (3.8 meters) wide and 33 feet (10.1 meters) long and use solar panels to provide some 15 kilowatts of power.
The design calls for a single docking port on one end and a big cupola window on the opposite end for photography and viewing.
The outpost is anticipated to be placed right into a 310-mile (500-kilometer) circular orbit in the identical inclination because the International Space Station, 51.6 degrees with respect to the equator.
Visitors, each space agency and personal individuals, would fly to the space station using a Crew Dragon spacecraft to spend as much as 30 days aboard the outpost.
![A "Starship-class module" is expected to be launched as early as 2028. Haven-1 would dock to this much-larger vehicle. Credit: Vast](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/645aa80891e70d2e835b7c6e_starship-module-655x333.jpg)
A “Starship-class module” is anticipated to be launched as early as 2028. Haven-1 would dock to this much-larger vehicle. Credit: Vast
The corporate advertises opportunities for science, research and in-space manufacturing using as much as 1 kilowatt of power, in addition to 24/7 communications and opportunities for lunar artificial gravity by spinning.
Haven-1 is anticipated to be full of as much as 330 kilos (150 kilograms) of pre-load cargo mass and be “fully-independent and equipped with all consumable needs.”
Since there is barely one docking port, there doesn’t look like any opportunity for resupply. Vast hasn’t said what number of crewed visits the single-module outpost could support.
Nevertheless, the corporate did say in its press release that Haven-1 would eventually be connected as a module to a bigger Vast space station that’s under development.
The corporate’s roadmap shows a 23-foot (7-meter) wide “Starship-class module” being flown as early as 2028 with multiple docking ports. Each Haven-1 and the Starship-class module have a crew capability of 4.
There are other industrial space stations in development, most with support from NASA.
Axiom Space has a contract with NASA to deliver several industrial modules to the International Space Station starting as early as 2025. These can be detached before the ISS is deorbited in 2030 to form an independent outpost.
Furthermore, NASA helps three other corporations to develop free-flying space stations: Blue Origin with its Orbital Reef, Nanoracks with its Starlab and Northrop Grumman with its Cygnus-based outpost. The earliest these are expected to fly is 2027.