First commercial space station plans spinning gravity
A US startup is aiming to put a space station capable of generating its own gravity into orbit within the next three years.
Vast plans to launch the world’s first commercial space station, called Haven-1, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to low-Earth orbit no earlier than August 2025.
Haven-1 will initially act as an independent crewed space station for four people before being connected as a module to a larger Vast space station currently in development.
The long-term goal is to develop a 100m long multi-module with spinning artificial gravity space station designed to fit in the SpaceX Starship transportation system. Vast use Haven-1 to conduct the world’s first spinning artificial gravity experiments on a commercial space station.
The Haven-1 mission will be quickly followed by Vast-1, the first human spaceflight mission to Haven-1 on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The vehicle and its four-person crew will dock with Haven-1 for up to 30 days while orbiting Earth.
This represents the first time in history that a commercial space station company has both a contracted launch for its space station and a visiting human spaceflight mission.
Haven will have 1000 W of power from solar panels and 24/7 communications back to Earth which will provide WiFi in the habitat, with 150 kg of pre-loaded cargo mass. The aim is to have a fully independent space station providing life support functions and consumables for a 30 day mission.
“Vast is thrilled to embark on this journey of launching the world’s first commercial space station, Haven-1, and its first crew, Vast-1,” said Jed McCaleb, CEO of Vast. “We are grateful to SpaceX for this exciting partnership that represents the first steps in Vast’s long-term vision of launching much larger, artificial gravity space stations in Earth orbit and beyond.”
“A commercial rocket launching a commercial spacecraft with commercial astronauts to a commercial space station is the future of low-Earth orbit, and with Vast we’re taking another step toward making that future a reality,” said Tom Ochinero, Senior Vice President of Commercial Business at SpaceX. “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 commercial space station.”
SpaceX will also provide crew training on Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft, emergency preparedness, spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises, as well as partial and full mission simulations including docking and undocking with Haven-1 for return to Earth.
