Long Beach-based aerospace company Vast Space and Hawthorne-headquartered SpaceX announced a new partnership and plan to launch the world’s first commercial space station — dubbed Haven-1 — into low-Earth orbit by 2025, according to a Wednesday, May 10 news release.
Haven-1, the space station, will be launched into space by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the release said. Once completed, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will fly out the first human flight to dock on the space station — where they’ll stay for up to a month while orbiting Earth.
“Haven-1 will initially act as an independent crewed space station prior to being connected as a module to a larger Vast space station currently in development,” the announcement said. “Vast also secured an option with SpaceX for an additional human spaceflight mission to Haven-1.”
If successful, the Haven-1 launch and subsequent missions will represent a major milestone in Vast Space’s larger mission to develop a 100-meter-long, multi-module artificial gravity station launched by SpaceX’s Starship transportation system, the announcement said.
Haven-1 could serve as the location for Vast’s first spinning artificial gravity experiment on a commercial space station — if the mission is successful, the announcement said.
“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 Vast CEO Jed McCaleb said in the announcement. “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.”
The company relocated to Long Beach from El Segundo earlier this year. Vast officials said they’re aiming to expand the team to 700 employees by the end of 2027 — which would be a large economic boost to Long Beach’s already booming aerospace industry, dubbed “Space…
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