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\n The International Space Station (ISS) is one of humanity\u2019s greatest achievements, providing a habitat in orbit that has been occupied continuously for almost 25 years. Visited by almost 300 people<\/a> from 26 countries so far, it is a shining example of international collaboration and a one-of-a-kind technological marvel.\n <\/p>\n \n But its lifespan is drawing to a close, and even though it has long outlived its originally scheduled 15-year mission,<\/a> NASA plans to de-orbit the station around 2030<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The agency is working with private companies to transition to a commercial space station. A competition<\/a> will select the best designs and one or more partners for an initial demonstration that will include a 30-day, crewed mission in space. Further down the line, NASA would essentially buy \u201cstation services\u201d from a private contractor tasked with launching a modern ISS successor.\n <\/p>\n \n The entries for the competition are due to be submitted next year, but NASA is already working with several companies developing commercial station designs before the actual ISS replacement work begins.\n <\/p>\n \n Among these companies is California-based Vast Space, which signed a deal with SpaceX to launch what would be the world\u2019s first commercial space station \u2014 called Haven-1<\/a> \u2014 currently slated for May 2026.\n <\/p>\n \n The single-module design is a simple proof-of-concept meant to be in orbit for three years, to support four two-week missions performed by a crew of four astronauts each.\n <\/p>\n \n Sporting a \u201chuman-centric\u201d design and a science lab capable of supporting microgravity research and manufacturing opportunities for technology including semi-conductors, Haven-1 would be available for both private and government missions, allowing Vast Space to gain experience for the much more complex undertaking of building an ISS successor, should it win the NASA competition.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOur number one priority is to become an actual space station company \u2014 one that has a station in orbit, has sent people to it for a duration of time and has brought them back safely to Earth,\u201d said Vast Space CEO Max Haot. \u201cThat\u2019s really the race we are in.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Haven-1 would have a diameter of 4.4 meters (14.7 feet) and a habitable volume of 45 cubic meters (1,500 cubic feet), or about the same as inside a single-deck bus\u2014about 1\/8 of the ISS, whose habitable volume is 388 cubic meters<\/a> (13,696 cubic feet). It would be launched into orbit using a SpaceX Falcon 9, with the first crew to follow a couple of months after the station reaches orbit, using SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon spacecraft.\n <\/p>\n \n The internal design includes a 1.2-meter (4-foot) dome window, a deployable communal table, a private sleeping space for each crew member and high-speed internet connectivity, provided by Starlink. \u201cIt\u2019s not designed to be a luxury hotel,\u201d said Haot, \u201cbut we believe that in every environment, if you feel better, if you can rest better, and if you can communicate better, then you can work better.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Since the announcement<\/a> of the project, in mid-2023, Vast Space has grown from about 200 to its current 950 employees, Haot said, and has invested in its own facilities that are capable of not only producing the Haven-1 module, but two modules a year of the much bigger Haven-2 \u2014 the potential ISS successor that Vast is in the very early stages of planning.\n <\/p>\n \n The company finished building a \u201cqualification\u201d version of Haven-1 earlier this year \u2014 one that is not meant to fly and only used for ground testing \u2014 and tested the structure<\/a> against pressurization and launch forces, among other things. The company has also recently conducted tests with NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n At the same time, Vast started building the actual module that is meant to go into orbit, which is now in the final stages of welding, according to Haot. That will be followed by a process called vehicle integration, where all systems are put together and tested, before pre-launch operations are set to start in April 2026 ahead of the planned May liftoff.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOur next big milestone will be to announce the crew of Haven-1 and its exact mission activities,\u201d Haot said, adding that the company\u2019s target customers will be space agencies \u2014 with a special focus on emerging nations that are looking to send astronauts into orbit for the first time. It is also looking to private, self-funded individuals, Haot said, adding that a spot on board will be awarded, for an undisclosed but hefty price, to people who will be training \u201cvery seriously\u201d for their role and engaging in \u201cimportant work\u201d in space.\n <\/p>\n \n Some of that work will likely happen in the station\u2019s science lab, which Vast has developed with commercial partners in mind. Among them is Florida-based space infrastructure company Redwire Space, which has already conducted research on the ISS with stem cells and cancer detection, among other things.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMost of our initial activity aboard Haven-1 is expected to be a continuation of the pharmaceutical research and manufacturing we\u2019ve been doing aboard the ISS,\u201d said Rich Boling, vice president of Corporate Advancement at Redwire. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to be a part of such an historic enterprise, which can move at the speed of business. We expect Haven-1 to be an effective platform for research and manufacturing, albeit one that initially is more constrained than the ISS in terms of space available for our payloads.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Vast isn\u2019t the only private company that NASA is working with to kickstart the development of private space stations: Starlab<\/a> is a joint venture that includes aviation giant Airbus and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, and there\u2019s Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin<\/a> and Texas-based Axiom Space<\/a>, which in 2022 performed the first all-private crew mission to the ISS.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is good to see a variety of different stations emerge,\u201d said Sandra H\u00e4uplik-Meusburger, an architect and space researcher at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. \u201cFrom a design perspective, starting small, with a single-module station, is a feasible approach because you can test critical systems, complexity is reduced and it\u2019s economical. But the bigger vision must be implemented in the concept from the beginning \u2014 starting a space station is like starting a village, what you choose as the starting point sets the path for the future.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Frederick Scharmen, an associate professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Morgan State University, who works on space habitats, appreciates that Vast is putting a focus on crew comfort and crew autonomy. \u201cThe Haven-1 project puts people and their daily needs, which go beyond basic survival, back in the center of habitability and spaceflight,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n However, running space stations is an expensive business, said Olivier de Weck of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. \u201cWe have done some research on commercial space stations and not only their technical feasibility, but also the logistical effort and economic viability \u2014 the math is pretty daunting,\u201d he said, adding that the current ISS operating cost is about $12 million per day, about half of which is transportation cost for crew and cargo to and from the station.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn order to have any chance of viability, a future commercial space station will have to \u2018land\u2019 its annual operating costs somewhere in the range between $1-2 billion per year, corresponding to an annual cost of between $2.7 to 5.5 million per day, less than half the ISS.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Vast did not disclose operating costs, but said it will have invested about $1 billion, a combination of private capital provided by its founder Jed McCaleb, who previously made a fortune in the cryptocurrency industry, and revenue from customers, by the time Haven-1 launches.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link The International Space Station (ISS) is one of humanity\u2019s greatest achievements, providing a habitat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-34960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/vast-haven-1-interior-cutaway-1920x1080.jpg\")
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\u201cShuttle Silhouette,\u201d from 2010 \u2014 with Haven-1 illustrated in place of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.” class=”image_large__dam-img image_large__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_large__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1971″ width=”3819″ loading=’lazy’\/><\/p>\n