As Ars reported last week, NASA’s plan to replace the International Space Station with commercial space stations is running into a time crunch.
The giant International Space Station will shut down in less than five years from now, and the U.S. space agency has not yet formally published rules and requirements for follow-on stations being designed and developed by several different private companies.
Although there are expected to be multiple bidders in “Phase Two” of NASA’s commercial space station program, there are currently four main contenders: Voyager Technologies, Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Vast Space. At some point later this year, the space agency is expected to select one or possibly two of these companies for larger contracts that will support their station construction efforts.
To understand the overall landscape as competition increases, Ars recently interviewed Voyager chief executive Dylan Taylor about his company’s plans for a private station, Starlab. Today we’re publishing an interview with Max Haot, chief executive of Vaast. The company is at the forefront of development, choosing to build a smaller, interim space station, Haven-1, capable of short-term stays. Ultimately, NASA wants facilities capable of continued habitation, but it is unclear whether this will be a requirement starting in the 2030s.
To date, Haven-1’s public launch date was mid-2026. However, as Haot explained in our interview, that launch date is no longer valid.
arse: You are pushing the launch of Haven-1 from the middle of this year to the first quarter of 2027. Why?
Max Haat:This is obviously our first space station, and we’re moving as safely and quickly as possible. This is the date now and we are confident that we will meet. We have been keeping an eye on that date, without any notice, for quite some time. And he’s still a year, maybe two years or more ahead of anyone else. It will create the world’s first commercial space station with an empty building and no crew in less than four years.
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