U.S.-based firm Vast, planning to launch the world’s first industrial space station subsequent 12 months, has evinced curiosity in utilizing Indian rockets to transport crew members to its orbital laboratory.
Vast CEO Max Hoat met the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) management group on the sidelines of the Global Space Exploration Conference right here to talk about potential collaborations within the space of space expertise.
The space-habitation firm is within the race to construct a space station that would be the successor to the International Space Station, which can be retired by 2031.
The California-based firm plans to launch Haven-1, a single-module space station, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2026.
“Right now, we are on track with our launch for May 2026,” Mr. Hoat advised PTI in an interview.
Vast plans to conduct a sequence of assessments on the space station, earlier than flying astronauts to the orbital laboratory by July subsequent 12 months. The first module of Haven-2, a a lot bigger space station, is anticipated to be launched in 2028.
Mr. Hoat is worked up about India’s Gaganyaan challenge, which plans to undertake a human spaceflight by early 2027, and keen to host science payloads on the space station.
“We are interested in flying payloads in science from India. The other interest we have is the possibility of using Gaganyaan rockets as a transport service for our space station,” he stated.
India’s heavy-lift Launch Vehicle Mark-III is scheduled to take the Gaganyaan mission to a low-earth orbit by early 2027. The LVM-3 rocket has been used for industrial missions, such because the launching of OneWeb satellites in orbit.
In 2023, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed a five-year, unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with Vast, with the said goal of serving to the corporate’s “concept maturation and eventual implementation of space station modules”.
The Haven-1 spacecraft has a 45-metre-cubed quantity and is designed to help up to 4 crew members for missions of a mean of two weeks in size.
It consists of 4 crew quarters for sleeping, a number of mid-deck lockers for science modules, a typical space with a deployable desk and a number of crew interfaces.
“Right now, we are solely focused on the SpaceX offering, but we are interested to hear whether there will be a competitive, reliable, safe option that we can use to bring our customers using the Gaganyaan vehicle to our space station,” Mr. Hoat stated.
As India plans to have its personal space station, Vast can also be open to collaboration with the ISRO for the use of Haven services.
“Space is one of the most amazing collaborative fields in the world. And so, we are extremely open to ideas. Some of the ideas that were being discussed is, you know, maybe we can offer access to our space station but also get access to that (India’s) space station and share capacity or share size,” Mr. Hoat stated.
“We definitely see a lot of opportunities if, obviously, India and the ISRO welcome us to collaborate, especially as our two countries are politically very friendly,” he stated.
Mr. Hoat stated the 2 different human-spaceflight-capable international locations — Russia and China — will not be in the identical acceptable area for the present U.S. politics.
“So that creates a unique situation where we might have two human spaceflight capable countries that can work together,” Mr. Hoat stated.
Published – May 11, 2025 02:45 pm IST
