The world's leading rocket launch provider and a California-based space startup are teaming up to solicit research proposals for experiments that will fly aboard the first-ever commercial space station, slated to liftoff later this year.
Vast Space is scheduled to launch the Haven-1 space station to orbit this August. The single-module station will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, to be followed in short order by the launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon that will ferry a small number of astronauts to temporarily inhabit that station. Now, SpaceX and Vast have issued a joint request for proposals on just what to do onboard once Haven-1 is in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
The companies are looking for "high-impact" research to leverage Dragon and Haven-1, which will be "aimed at advancing long-term human habitation and exploration in space," according to a statement from Vast. In a parallel release on SpaceX's website and in a post on X, formerly Twitter, the company outlined submissions should focus on two categories: biological and physiological experiments to study the impacts of microgravity on the human body, and autonomously executable or crew-facilitated research payloads designed to accompany missions to LEO.
If Haven-1 launches on schedule, it will be the first commercial space station and research platform to reach orbit — a welcome presence for NASA and the space-research industry as the International Space Station (ISS) approaches its retirement date sometime near the end of 2030.
"By partnering with the scientific community, we aim to build on the invaluable legacy research on the ISS, enabling pioneering research to address real-world solutions and pursuing transformative research opportunities to address and eventually overcome some of the most critical health and scientific challenges of space exploration — challenges that also hold the potential to improve life on Earth,” Vast CEO Max Haot said in the statement.
Haot's company designed Haven-1 to be modular, with plans for the station to eventually be joined to create a much larger floating laboratory. And, as Haven-1 approaches launch, Vast is already busy at work on Haven-2.
In October of 2024, at the 75th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) held in Milan, Italy, Haot revealed Vast is designing Haven-2 to meet the standards to win NASA's Commercial LEO Destination (CLD) contract in 2026. But Vast isn't the only one with their eye on that prize.
Several other space companies have plans to construct their own space stations as well, including Northrop Grumman, Axiom Space, Nanoracks and Sierra Space. NASA needs at least one of them on orbit before the ISS is decommissioned, and all of them are counting on market demand to make it there.
Proposals for research aboard Dragon and Haven-1 will be accepted through March 15, according to SpaceX's website. SpaceX and Vast specify that neither companies will be providing any direct funding to the research projects themselves, but do outline that winning selections will have access to the orbital lab, crew time for experiment execution, and insight into hardware designs and qualifications for spaceflight, "at no cost."
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