Vast Space Unveils Its Plan to Replace the International Space Station

NASA’s competition to select a commercial replacement for the International Space Station has one more contender. On Sunday, Vast Space revealed its plans to construct an ISS replacement that it will call Haven-2. 

The Long Beach, California, startup is pitching this proposal for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program as a spinoff of the Haven-1 private space station that it announced last May and plans to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than August 2025.

Vast’s announcement projects a 2028 launch for the first module of Haven-2, a cylindrical design based on the 33-foot-long Haven-1 that’s about 50% longer. It will then launch three more modules over the next two years, leaving the station looking a bit like a space train.

At completion, Vast’s Haven-2 design (Credit: Vast Space)

A third phase of Haven-2, from 2030 to 2032, will see the launch of a core module that will be almost 23 feet wide, followed by another four modules. At that point, Vast will reassemble the station to have four spokes of two modules each joined to that hub. 

This configuration would allow further upgrades by adding such parts as a robotic arm, a large viewing area modeled after the ISS cupola, and extra modules from international partners.

Vast’s did not mention or respond to questions about cost or a launch vehicle, but its cooperation with SpaceX so far suggests Haven-2’s modules will ride that company’s exceptionally reliable Falcon 9 to orbit. The core module, however, would require a wider payload fairing than SpaceX has flown on that rocket or the Falcon Heavy so far.

NASA already has three other commercial space-station proposals to consider: Orbital Reef, in development by Blue Origin in partnership with Boeing and Sierra Space; Axiom Space’s Axiom Station; and Starlab, a station from a team led by Voyager Space that includes Airbus and Northrop Grumman designed to be launched fully assembled by SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket.

The ISS has had a continuous human presence since the first crew boarded the station on Nov. 2, 2000. But its operations are currently set to end in 2030, after which a SpaceX-built tug will deorbit the station and send whatever parts survive reentry into a watery grave, probably in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA’s “CLD” program aims to give the agency a more affordable option than the ISS, which costs NASA about $4.1 billion a year to operate. But the unclear business prospects of privately built stations and the dwindling time between now and 2030 have led to increasing concerns that NASA will see a gap in its space station presence.

Should that happen, the human population in space probably won’t reach zero, though it may be fully fluent in Mandarin, courtesy of China’s growing Tiangong space station.

About Rob Pegoraro

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Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.

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