Vast Space and SpaceX have a new partnership and plan to launch the world’s first commercial space station — dubbed Haven-1 — into low-Earth orbit by 2025, the two local companies have announced.
Long Beach’s Vast Space and SpaceX, which is headquartered in Hawthorne, announced the new partnership in a Wednesday, May 10, press release.
Haven-1 will be launched into space by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the release said. Once completed, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will fly out the first human flight to dock on the space station — where they’ll stay for up to a month while orbiting Earth.
“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 announcement said. “Vast also secured an option with SpaceX for an additional human spaceflight mission to Haven-1.”
If successful, the Haven-1 launch and subsequent missions will represent a major milestone in Vast Space’s larger efforts to develop a 100-meter-long, multi-module artificial gravity station launched by SpaceX’s Starship transportation system, the announcement said.
Haven-1 could serve as the location for Vast’s first spinning artificial gravity experiment on a commercial space station — if the mission is successful, the announcement said.
“Vast is thrilled to embark on this journey of launching the world’s first commercial space station, Haven-1, and its first crew, Vast-1,” Vast CEO Jed McCaleb said in the announcement. “We are grateful to SpaceX for this exciting partnership that represents the first steps in Vast’s long-term vision of launching much larger, artificial gravity space stations in Earth orbit and beyond.”
Officials for Vast, which relocated to Long Beach from El Segundo earlier this year, said they’re aiming to expand their team to 700 employees by the end of 2027. That would be a large economic boost to Long Beach’s aerospace industry, dubbed “Space Beach,” especially after Virgin Orbit, also based in the city, filed for bankruptcy and announced it would lay off nearly 700 employees earlier this year.
“We are waking up to incredible news,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson tweeted on Wednesday morning. “We’re thrilled to see (Space Beach) at the forefront and look forward to the positive economic impact that this will make on Long Beach and beyond.”
Vast, meanwhile, is indeed selling tickets for four seats on the inaugural mission to Haven-1.
They expect customers to include domestic and international space agencies — alongside individuals involved in “science and philanthropic projects,” the announcement said.
Vast isn’t the first aerospace firm to make a play at opening up the final frontier to a commercial market.
It’s long been a priority of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which last year launched three business people into space on its Falcon 9 rocket for a whopping $55 million each.
Richard Branson, the British billionaire who founded the now-defunct Virgin Orbit, also launched himself into space in 2021 — followed shortly thereafter by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos’ 10-minute foray into orbit in a rocket operated by his own company, Blue Origin.
SpaceX also launched four tourists into orbit in 2021 — marking the world’s first space mission without a professional astronaut on board.
For now, space tourism is reserved for the ultrarich — with a SpaceX senior executive estimating as many as six private flights at millions of dollars every year.
But the 591 people who’ve reached space — or its edges — since space travel was invented may soon be joined by countless others as new-age aerospace firms such as SpaceX, Vast Space and Blue Origin continue their effors to commercialize the cosmos.
Find out more about reserving a seat in space at vastspace.com/reserve.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
