MOVE over ISS – a startup vying to become the world’s first commercial space station has revealed the stunning interior lucky visitors can expect.
Haven-1 feels more like a luxury hotel with sleek wood veneer slats, soft and padded white walls, a gym space and private rooms featuring entertainment and online communication tech to contact home.
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There are four private room quarters, each with a built-in storage compartment, vanity, and a custom amenities kit.
But crucially, creators Vast have worked on improving sleep for space inhabitants which can be uncomfortable for astronauts due to weightlessness.
Experts have developed a signature sleep system that is roughly the size of a queen-size bed with a customised amount of equal pressure throughout the night – and it adjusts whether you’re a side or back sleeper.
“This is not just any old duvet,” Hillary Coe, Vast’s chief design and marketing officer told Wired.
“It’s a duvet that inflates, creating this equal pressure up against you which allows for a beautiful, comfortable night’s rest.”
A common area is at the station’s core with a deployable table and domed window viewing spot.
The images are final designs of how Haven-1 will eventually look – though they’re just mock-ups for now.
Visitors could be staying onboard as soon as 2026.
The firm is hoping to launch the station with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket “no earlier than August 2025.”
Andrew Feustel, a veteran Nasa astronaut who has spent more than 225 days in space on the ISS, helped advise Vast on developing the interior.
“I’ve flown three missions to space, and we are learning from those experiences and innovating to improve the way we can live and work on a space station,” he said.
“From communication and connectivity, to private space and interacting with others aboard, to advancing human progress on Earth and beyond, every detail has been designed with the astronaut experience at the core of our work.”
Space fans will be able to stay on the station for up to 30 days but it’s unclear how much a trip will cost.
Given that a seat onboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft up to the ISS can cost around $55million, Haven-1 might also be for the mega wealthy.
Despite the cosy hotel vibes, Haven-1 is intended to host “state-of-the-art facilities for scientific research”.
CEO Max Haot said: “We are not building a luxury hotel in space, we are applying design to enhance crew cohesion, productivity, safety, communication to help sovereign astronauts and self-funded private individuals achieve their important orbital mission objectives.”
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Plans to end the ISS revealed
Nasa is planning to de-orbit the aging International Space Station in 2031.
The space agency is considering a plan to crash the spacecraft back down on Earth into a so-called ‘space graveyard’.
Point Nemo, Latin for “no one”, is around 4,000 metres deep and further from land than any point on Earth, making it the ideal spot to crash defunct rockets and satellites.
Hundreds of spacecraft – mostly Russian – have been laid to rest there by Nasa and other space agencies since it was first used in 1971.
The plan is to slowly lower the space station’s altitude from its current spot 408km above ground.
Eventually, the Earth’s atmosphere will pull it in closer and faster, before crashing into the sea.
The iconic space station was launched back in 1998 and has welcomed more than 270 astronauts and space tourists during its time.
