VAST: Engineering a New Economy in Low Earth Orbit

Forging a New Frontier in Space

In the landscape of commercial spaceflight, a new generation of companies is emerging to build the infrastructure for humanity’s future in orbit. Among them, VAST has articulated a particularly forward-looking vision. The company’s stated mission is to develop humanity’s most capable space stations, creating the foundation for long-term living and thriving beyond Earth. This objective is driven by a philosophy that extends beyond simply replacing aging orbital infrastructure. It is rooted in the conviction of its founder, tech entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, that leveraging technology to expand human habitation throughout the solar system is essential for accessing new resources and ensuring the long-term growth of civilization.

This perspective shapes the company’s entire strategic roadmap. While competitors are focused on developing successors to the International Space Station (ISS) primarily as microgravity laboratories, VAST’s ultimate objective is the creation of large-scale, rotating space stations capable of generating artificial gravity. This long-term goal addresses one of the most significant obstacles to permanent human settlement in space: the debilitating physiological effects of prolonged exposure to zero gravity, which include muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and cardiovascular deconditioning. All of VAST’s near-term projects are designed as incremental steps toward this final, ambitious destination.

The company’s emergence is timed to a pivotal moment in space exploration. The planned retirement of the ISS around 2030 has catalyzed a new commercial space race, with private enterprises competing to provide the next generation of orbital platforms. This transition is actively encouraged by government agencies, most notably through NASA‘s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, which seeks to foster a market of private station operators from which NASA can purchase services as one of many customers. VAST is positioning itself as a key contender in this new market, but with a foundational mission that looks far beyond the immediate opportunity. While its proposed stations will serve the microgravity research market, they are also designed as stepping stones toward a future where large populations can live and work in space for extended periods, a vision made possible only by solving the gravity problem.

Haven-1: The Commercial Vanguard

VAST’s first major project, Haven-1, is a single-module commercial space station that embodies the company’s strategy of taking tangible, iterative steps toward its long-term goals. Scheduled for launch in May 2026, Haven-1 is engineered to be the world’s first commercial space station, serving as both a viable business platform and a critical technology demonstrator.

Technical Specifications and Design

Haven-1 is a compact and efficient habitat designed to be launched on a single SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, a choice that leverages the most reliable and economical launch vehicle currently available. This “Minimum Viable Space Station” approach allows for rapid deployment and operational readiness. The station stands 10.1 meters tall, providing 45 cubic meters of habitable volume within its 80 cubic meter pressurized structure. With a mass of 14,600 kg, it is designed to fit neatly within the Falcon 9’s payload fairing. Its deployable solar arrays, using triple-junction solar cells, are capable of generating up to 13.2 kilowatts of peak power to support the crew and onboard experiments.

A key design choice that enables this single-launch architecture is the integration with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. While Haven-1 has its own life support systems, its operational duration for crewed missions is extended by leveraging the life support capabilities of the docked Dragon capsule. This symbiotic relationship makes missions of up to 30 days feasible for a crew of four, a clever engineering compromise that makes a relatively small, affordable station highly functional. This dependency highlights that Haven-1 is not a fully self-sufficient habitat like the ISS, but a crew-tended platform optimized for short-duration missions, reflecting a strategy focused on getting to orbit quickly and building operational experience.

Mission Profile and Operations

The operational plan for Haven-1 is clear and methodical. Following its launch to a 425 km orbit with an inclination of 51.6 degrees, the station will undergo a commissioning phase. VAST then plans to conduct up to four separate crewed missions to the station over its three-year operational life. Each mission will transport four astronauts aboard a Crew Dragon for stays of approximately two weeks, which can be extended to 30 days with the support of the Dragon spacecraft.

A significant feature that distinguishes Haven-1 from previous habitats is its state-of-the-art communications system. The station will be equipped with SpaceX‘s Starlink laser terminals, providing continuous, high-speed internet connectivity. This allows for 24/7 data and video links to Earth, a substantial improvement over the scheduled, often-limited communication windows available on the ISS. This capability is not just a convenience; it is a powerful commercial selling point for research partners requiring real-time data monitoring and for sovereign astronaut programs focused on public outreach.

Beyond its commercial function, Haven-1 serves as a crucial testbed for VAST’s future ambitions. Between crewed missions, the company plans to conduct spin tests, rotating the station to simulate lunar gravity. These experiments will provide invaluable data on the performance of a rotating habitat and its systems, directly informing the design of its future artificial gravity stations and demonstrating a clear link between its near-term actions and its long-term vision.

Manufacturing a New Generation of Spacecraft

VAST’s approach to manufacturing is a cornerstone of its competitive strategy. The company has embraced a high degree of vertical integration, choosing to design, build, and test the vast majority of its critical systems in-house at its facilities in California. This marks a significant shift in the aerospace industry, as VAST is bringing the manufacturing of space station primary structures back to the United States for the first time in two decades.

A Strategy of In-House Control

This commitment to vertical integration extends across nearly all of Haven-1’s essential components. The company is producing its own primary aluminum structure, the sophisticated control moment gyroscopes (CMGs) required for attitude control, the avionics that serve as the station’s nervous system, and the battery modules that store its power. By controlling these production lines directly, VAST gains significant advantages in speed, quality assurance, and cost management—factors that industry observers have identified as a key differentiator from its competitors.

This manufacturing philosophy enables a “build-it-first” culture that prioritizes hands-on experience over theoretical design. The company learns from the tangible challenges of fabrication and assembly, allowing for rapid and agile problem-solving. A prime example of this approach in action was the decision to switch the primary structural material for Haven-1 from stainless steel to aluminum. After encountering manufacturing difficulties with steel, the team launched a parallel effort to work with aluminum and, based on real-world experience with both materials, made a swift and informed decision to change course. Such agility would be nearly impossible in a traditional aerospace model reliant on a complex web of external suppliers and lengthy contract modifications. This in-house control is the engine that powers VAST’s entire strategy, mitigating the supply chain risks and delays that could otherwise jeopardize its aggressive timelines.

An Aggressive Pace of Development

The results of this strategy are evident in VAST’s rapid development progress. The company began by constructing a full-scale “Pathfinder” article to validate its tooling, team, and manufacturing processes. This allowed them to move quickly to the primary structure qualification article, which was manufactured in just six months and successfully completed its initial proof pressure tests in early 2025, only 15 months after the company began working with aluminum.

VAST has maintained a transparent and ambitious schedule for the final push to launch. The company plans to complete the manufacturing and testing of the flight-ready primary structure for Haven-1 by July 2025. This will be followed by a period of full vehicle integration and checkout from July to December 2025. The final step before launch will be a comprehensive environmental test campaign at NASA‘s Neil Armstrong Test Facility from January to March 2026, where the fully assembled 14-ton station will be subjected to the acoustic, vibration, and thermal vacuum conditions it will experience during launch and in orbit. This clear, milestone-driven timeline provides tangible evidence of the company’s progress and serves as a credible benchmark for its goal of launching in May 2026.

A Human-Centric Approach to Habitat Design

VAST is pioneering a design philosophy for its space habitats that places human psychology and well-being at the forefront. This human-centric approach is founded on the principle that a comfortable and thoughtfully designed environment is not a luxury, but a critical factor in enhancing crew performance and ensuring mission success. By addressing the psychological challenges of living in space, VAST plans to create habitats where astronauts can not only survive but also thrive.

Designing for the Mind in Isolation

Long-duration spaceflight presents a unique set of psychological stressors. Astronauts contend with isolation, confinement in a sterile and unchanging environment, and the psychological weight of the “Earth-out-of-view” phenomenon. These conditions can lead to anxiety, depression, interpersonal friction, and a decline in cognitive performance—all significant risks to a mission. VAST’s design for Haven-1 directly confronts these challenges by creating an interior that fosters a sense of connection to Earth and promotes psychological comfort.

The company is deliberately moving away from the purely functional, often sterile aesthetic of traditional spacecraft. The interior of Haven-1 is described as warm, welcoming, and uncluttered, featuring design elements chosen specifically for their psychological impact. This includes the use of replica wood paneling, made from a fire-resistant maple veneer, and a soothing, creamy-white color scheme. These natural textures and tones are intended to create a grounding, calming atmosphere that contrasts with the technological harshness of the space environment.

Key Features for Crew Well-Being

Central to this human-centric design is Haven-1’s large, 1.1-meter domed window. This feature was engineered to provide astronauts with expansive, 180-degree views of Earth and the cosmos, serving as a vital link to their home planet and a source of inspiration and perspective. The window has undergone rigorous testing, including “kick tests” simulating accidental bumps from astronauts with hundreds of pounds of force, to confirm its structural integrity and ensure crew safety.

Beyond aesthetics, the habitat incorporates functional elements designed for comfort and health. This includes a patent-pending sleep system, roughly the size of a queen bed, that provides customized pressure to accommodate different sleeping positions, ensuring astronauts are well-rested. An integrated fitness center with a resistance band system allows for essential exercise to mitigate the physiological deconditioning caused by microgravity. A deployable communal table in the common area provides a dedicated space for shared meals and social interaction, which is vital for maintaining crew cohesion and morale.

This focus on user experience is reinforced by the expertise VAST has brought to the project. The interior layout has been influenced by Peter Russell-Clarke, a former designer for Apple known for his work on products that blend form and function seamlessly. His input is complemented by that of former NASA astronaut Andrew “Drew” Feustel, whose 225 days of experience living in space ensures that the design is grounded in the practical realities and psychological needs of its inhabitants. By commercializing human factors in this way, VAST is creating a new value proposition, betting that a habitat designed for human well-being will attract customers who understand that a happy, healthy crew is a more productive and effective one.

The Haven-1 Business Ecosystem

Even before its first launch, VAST has been actively building a diverse commercial ecosystem around Haven-1, securing a range of international partners for its onboard laboratory. This early traction demonstrates tangible market demand for a commercial research platform in low Earth orbit and validates VAST’s role as an enabler of a new space economy.

A Global Hub for Microgravity Research

The centerpiece of Haven-1’s commercial offering is the Haven-1 Lab, the first crewed microgravity research and manufacturing facility on a commercial space station. The lab is equipped with ten Middeck Locker Equivalent (MLE) payload slots, each capable of supporting a payload of up to 30 kg and receiving 100 watts of continuous power. This facility has already attracted a slate of international partners, filling much of its capacity well ahead of launch.

The partners represent a cross-section of the emerging in-space manufacturing and research industry:

• Redwire (USA) and Yuri (Germany) were among the first to reserve payload space. Redwire will fly its Advanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP4) for life and physical science research, while Yuri will offer its ScienceTaxi platform for a wide range of microgravity experiments.
• Japan Manned Space Systems (JAMSS) will install a multi-purpose facility to accommodate experiments in areas like colloidal photonic crystallization for advanced optical materials.
• Interstellar Lab (France/USA) will fly its Eden 1.0 plant growth unit to research how microgravity impacts plant biology, with an eye toward developing regenerative life support systems for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
• Exobiosphere (Luxembourg) will install its Orbital High Throughput Drug Screening Device to conduct experiments that accelerate cell growth and uncover cellular behaviors not observable on Earth, aiming to revolutionize drug discovery for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Strategic Government and Agency Collaborations

Alongside its commercial payload partners, VAST has forged critical relationships with key government and quasi-governmental space organizations. A pivotal agreement was signed with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the organization that manages the ISS National Laboratory. This strategic partnership gives VAST direct access to ISS research opportunities, allowing the company to gain operational experience and validate its technologies in microgravity before Haven-1 is launched. It also strengthens VAST’s position as it prepares to bid for NASA‘s Private Astronaut Missions (PAMs) to the ISS, a field currently dominated by competitor Axiom Space.

VAST also holds an unfunded Space Act Agreement with NASA under the Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities initiative. This agreement provides VAST with access to NASA‘s invaluable technical expertise, services, and facilities. For example, VAST has already collaborated with NASA‘s Marshall Space Flight Center to test Haven-1’s trace contaminant control system, a critical component of its life support system. In return, NASA gains important insight into VAST’s progress and readiness to support the agency’s future needs in low Earth orbit. These collaborations underscore VAST’s strategy of working closely with the established space ecosystem while simultaneously carving out its own commercial path.

The Strategic Gambit: Business Model and Market Positioning

VAST has adopted an unconventional and aggressive business strategy that sets it apart from its competitors in the race to build commercial space stations. The company is pursuing a “build-first, win-later” approach, financed by a unique funding model, and de-risked by a methodical testing program. This positions VAST as a disruptive force in the emerging LEO economy.

The “Build-First, Win-Later” Strategy

At the core of VAST’s strategy is the decision to privately fund, design, and build its first crewed space station, Haven-1, before NASA awards the second phase of its Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) contracts in mid-2026. While competitors focus on maturing their designs on paper to win NASA funding, VAST is focused on building and flying hardware. The company is betting that by the time NASA makes its selection, VAST will be the only contender with an operational, crew-rated station in orbit. This tangible achievement, they believe, will provide an undeniable competitive advantage over rivals’ “paper engineering,” demonstrating proven, real-world capability. This approach is designed to leapfrog competitors who started earlier but are progressing more slowly.

A Privately Funded Ambition

This ambitious strategy is enabled by a funding model that is unique in the commercial station market. VAST is primarily financed by the personal fortune of its founder, Jed McCaleb, who has committed to investing $1 billion of his own capital into the venture. This contrasts sharply with competitors like Blue Origin and Voyager Space, which received initial government funding from NASA to support their design efforts.

This private funding model presents a double-edged sword. On one hand, it grants VAST complete strategic control and the agility to move at an accelerated pace, free from the oversight and milestones often associated with government contracts or the demands of external venture capital investors. On the other hand, it concentrates immense financial risk on a single individual and raises questions about long-term funding stability should the project face significant delays or cost overruns.

Risk Mitigation Through Flight Heritage: The Haven-Demo Mission

To mitigate the immense technical and financial risk of launching a billion-dollar crewed station as its first major project, VAST is executing a crucial precursor mission: Haven-Demo. Scheduled for launch in late 2025, Haven-Demo is a 500 kg satellite that will serve as an in-orbit testbed for Haven-1’s most critical non-pressurized subsystems.

The mission’s objective is to test and validate the performance of Haven-1’s propulsion, avionics, flight computers, power systems, guidance and control software, and communication radios in the actual space environment. By flying these components first on a much smaller, less expensive spacecraft—costing in the single-digit millions compared to the billion-dollar price tag for Haven-1—VAST can identify and resolve any issues before they are integrated into the crewed vehicle. This approach is designed to raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of these systems to TRL 9, or “flight proven,” significantly de-risking the Haven-1 launch and demonstrating a prudent, methodical approach to engineering development.

The Competitive Landscape

VAST’s strategy places it in a unique position relative to its main competitors:

• Axiom Space is pursuing a more evolutionary path, planning to attach its modules to the ISS starting around 2027 before separating to become a free-flying station. This leverages existing infrastructure but is seen by VAST as a slower and more complex approach, dependent on the ISS’s operational schedule.
• Blue Origin (Orbital Reef) and Voyager Space (Starlab) are leading consortiums backed by NASA’s initial CLD funding. They are following a more traditional, design-led development process and are not expected to have hardware in orbit as quickly as VAST, which began its hardware-focused approach years before them.

By aiming to be the first to fly, VAST is making a calculated gamble that operational proof will outweigh design heritage in the eyes of its most important potential customer, NASA.

The Long-Term Vision: From Haven-2 to Artificial Gravity

While Haven-1 represents VAST’s entry into the market, the company’s roadmap extends far beyond this initial platform. The long-term vision encompasses a larger, modular station designed to succeed the ISS, and ultimately, the development of habitats that can sustain human life for extended periods through the generation of artificial gravity. This multi-decade plan reveals a patient, cascading strategy where each phase is designed to fund and de-risk the next, more ambitious step.

Haven-2: The Proposed ISS Successor

Haven-2 is VAST’s answer to NASA’s call for a commercial replacement for the International Space Station. It is a significantly larger, more capable station built upon the proven technologies and operational experience gained from Haven-1. The design is modular, beginning with a single, stretched version of the Haven-1 module, which would be launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket and become operational by 2028. This would be followed by the launch of three additional modules at six-month intervals, forming a four-module station by 2030. The full configuration, to be completed by 2032, would include a large 7-meter diameter core module and a total of eight habitat modules, creating a station with a crew capacity of 12 and a habitable volume of 500 cubic meters—surpassing the capabilities of the ISS.

Interestingly, Haven-2 is being designed as a microgravity laboratory. This is a pragmatic strategic decision. While VAST’s ultimate goal is artificial gravity, the company recognizes that its anchor customer, NASA, requires a microgravity environment for its research. By tailoring Haven-2 to meet this specific requirement, VAST positions itself to win the lucrative CLD contract, which would provide the stable revenue stream and government partnership needed to fund its more visionary projects.

The Science and Challenge of Artificial Gravity

The final destination on VAST’s public roadmap is a large-scale, rotating artificial gravity station, targeted for 2035. The concept is based on a fundamental principle of physics: using centrifugal force to simulate gravity. By spinning a large structure, occupants on the interior “floor” are constantly pushed outward, creating a sensation identical to the pull of gravity. VAST’s concept involves a 100-meter-long structure, likely composed of modules similar to Haven-2, rotating end-over-end at approximately 3.5 revolutions per minute (RPM) to generate a comfortable level of artificial gravity.

Living in such a rotating environment, however, presents unique challenges, most notably the Coriolis effect. This is a “pseudo-force” that appears to deflect moving objects in a rotating frame of reference. For an astronaut, this would have strange and disorienting consequences. An object dropped would appear to curve sideways as it falls. Walking in the direction of the station’s spin (“spinward”) would make an astronaut feel heavier, while walking against it (“antispinward”) would make them feel lighter. Simple actions like turning one’s head can induce a sense of tumbling or vertigo, potentially leading to severe motion sickness.

The severity of these effects is directly related to the station’s radius and rotation speed. A smaller radius or a faster spin creates a more pronounced and uncomfortable Coriolis effect. Research suggests that for long-term comfort, rotation rates should be kept low, ideally around 1-2 RPM, which in turn requires a very large rotation radius—hundreds of meters—to generate Earth-like gravity. This is the primary engineering and financial challenge of building a comfortable artificial gravity habitat, and it explains why VAST is pursuing a long, incremental path to get there. The company is using the tangible market for microgravity research to bootstrap its way toward the more speculative, but potentially revolutionary, future of artificial gravity.

The Emerging Low Earth Orbit Economy

VAST’s ambitions are unfolding within the context of a rapidly expanding commercial space sector, often referred to as the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) economy. This new economic frontier is being driven by technological advancements, falling launch costs, and a surge in both private and government investment. VAST is positioning itself not merely as a participant in this market, but as a fundamental infrastructure provider for it.

Market Growth and Key Drivers

The LEO economy is projected to experience substantial growth over the next two decades. Some analyses predict the global space economy could surpass $1 trillion by 2030, with the LEO economy contributing over a trillion euros by 2040. A significant portion of this growth is driven by the LEO satellite market, which is forecasted to expand from approximately $12.6 billion in 2024 to over $41 billion by 2033. This expansion is fueled by the deployment of massive satellite constellations for global broadband communications, advanced Earth observation, and navigation services.

High-Value Applications in Microgravity

A key segment of this new economy, and the primary target market for VAST’s Haven stations, is in-space production applications (InSPA). This sector focuses on leveraging the unique microgravity environment to conduct research and manufacture high-value products that are difficult or impossible to create on Earth. The InSPA market is projected to grow from around $1.2 billion in 2025 to nearly $3 billion by 2029.

The commercial applications span several key industries:

• Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology: Microgravity allows for the growth of larger, more perfect protein crystals, which is invaluable for designing new drugs. Companies like Merck have already used the ISS to improve the formulation of their cancer drug, Keytruda. The environment also enables the creation of more accurate 3D cell cultures and bioprinted tissues, as they can grow without the deforming effects of gravity. The space-based biopharmaceuticals market alone is projected to reach $5.4 billion by 2032, driven by the potential for accelerated drug discovery and the development of novel therapies.
• Advanced Materials: The absence of gravity-induced convection and sedimentation allows for the creation of superior materials. This includes flawless optical fibers for telecommunications, next-generation semiconductors, and unique metal alloys with properties unattainable on Earth.

VAST’s stations are designed to be the orbital “factories” and “laboratories” where this work will happen. By providing the habitat, power, and logistics, VAST is building the essential infrastructure needed to unlock the full commercial potential of manufacturing and research in space.

Summary

VAST has entered the commercial space arena with a uniquely ambitious, two-pronged strategy. In the near term, the company is moving at an unprecedented pace to develop Haven-1, a commercial space station aimed at serving the immediate market for microgravity research and sovereign astronaut missions created by the impending retirement of the ISS. Simultaneously, it is pursuing a much larger, more challenging long-term vision: the creation of large-scale, artificial-gravity habitats that could one day enable permanent human settlement in space.

The company’s competitive approach is defined by its “build-first, win-later” gambit. Financed by the private capital of its founder, Jed McCaleb, and powered by a vertically integrated manufacturing model, VAST is focused on putting crew-rated hardware into orbit before its competitors. This strategy is designed to demonstrate undeniable operational capability, positioning the company to win NASA’s crucial Commercial LEO Destinations contract, which it sees as the gateway to its future ambitions. This approach is de-risked by methodical engineering, including the Haven-Demo precursor mission designed to achieve flight heritage for critical systems before they are integrated into the crewed station.

VAST further differentiates itself through a human-centric design philosophy, creating habitats that prioritize the psychological well-being and performance of their crews. By building a growing ecosystem of international commercial and government partners, the company is already demonstrating tangible market demand for its platforms.