Another private space company is interested in launching a space station. A company called Vast announced that it will cooperate with SpaceX to launch a space station called “Haven-1” to low-Earth orbit as early as August 2025, and then launch a manned mission called Vast-1 to allow 4 people stay at the Haven-1 space station for 30 days. Vast is currently looking for space crews for its first mission, either scientific or philanthropic, and has the option of launching a second crewed SpaceX mission.
The reason why the development can be completed in such a short time is that the Vast space station is actually very small, not much larger than the Crew Dragon with the cargo bay added. In addition to shortening the design and manufacturing time, it can also be sent to orbit with a Falcon 9 rocket, greatly reducing costs. Haven-1 is mainly designed for four people to conduct scientific research, or small-scale microgravity production, but there are plans to expand it in the future, and even add rotation to simulate lunar gravity.
If the extremely ambitious schedule of 2025 can be achieved, Vast will become a pioneer in the commercialization of orbit, surpassing known projects such as Orbital Reef. The only possible comparison is Axiom’s space station project based on the International Space Station.