Vast and Axiom Have a New Commercial Space Station Race

Space Startup Vast plans to launch the world’s first commercial space station, called Haven-1. It is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to low-Earth orbit no earlier than August 2025, 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 mission will be quickly followed by Vast-1, the first human spaceflight mission to Haven-1 on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The vehicle and its four-person crew will dock with Haven-1 for up to 30 days while orbiting Earth. Vast also secured an option with SpaceX for an additional human spaceflight mission to Haven-1. As of March 2023, Vast founder Jed McCaleb is worth US$2.4 billion according to Forbes’ Billionaires List. McCaleb was a major part of the Mt Gox exchange and the Ripple and Stellar cryptocurrency.

In June 2023, Vast commenced its SN3 mission by launching its Orbiter aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on their Transporter-8 mission The Orbiter was attached to Starfish Space’s Otter Pup and would go on to separate from it in the following months. However, on June 21st, Vast president Max Haot stated that the Orbiter SN3 was improperly spinning at 60 rpm. Vast chose to immediately deploy all the small sat payloads on board and then stated that Otter Pup’s primary mission can’t be accomplished.The SN3’s failure caused the delay of the Orbiter SN5 mission to fall back from fall 2023 to February 2024.

After the SN3 mission, Vast received a Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities-2 (CCSC-2) agreement from NASA to help develop artificial gravity stations a few days later. NASA will provide Vast with technical expertise, assessments, data, and more. Vast selected Impulse Space to develop Haven-1’s propulsion system.

On July 11, 2023, Vast announced that it had hired former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman to advise the company on its commercial space station efforts. A few weeks later, Vast announced that Jeb McCaleb would be stepping down from his role as CEO, and that Max Haot would succeed him as CEO. Vast also announced that it had hired Alex Hudson to be its first CTO.

Axiom Space is preparing for a 2026 launch of the first section of their next-generation platform that will operate in low-Earth orbit. Axiom Space is the only current company with the privilege of connecting its modules to the International Space Station.

In August 2023, Axiom Space secured $350 million in its Series-C round of growth funding, lifting the total funds raised to over $505 million from investors and achieving more than $2.2 billion in customer contracts. Axiom space was founded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini and Kam Ghaffarian, Executive Chairman, the company has built a track record of strong strategic partnerships and expanded their successful business operations, with the company not only winning NASA’s port award as the only space company with the privilege of attaching its first commercial space station module to the ISS, but also securing a long-term NASA contract worth $1.26 billion to provide Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) spacesuits for the Moon and LEO. Guaranteed payments from these task orders total about $370 million, increasing with each new task order received.

Axiom Station’s first module is under construction and is scheduled to launch to the ISS by 2026. Additional modules will follow to build out Axiom Station, which will be ready to separate from the ISS and operate independently, in support of customers around the world, by 2031 when NASA plans to retire the ISS.

Axiom Space has about 790 employees and Vast is in the range of 120 to 200 employees.

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts.  He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.

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