COLORADO SPRINGS — Commercial space station developer Vast has signed three more payload customers for its Haven-1 station set to launch in a little more than a year.
Vast announced April 8 that Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS), Interstellar Lab and Exobiosphere will fly research payloads on the Haven-1 station launching no earlier than May 2026. They join Redwire and Yuri as payload partners for the station.
JAMSS, which has supported research on Japan’s Kibo module on the International Space Station, will provide a multi-purpose payload facility for microgravity research on Haven-1. Interstellar Lab, a French company, will provide an advanced life sciences research facility called Eden 1.0 that will be used for experiments such as plant growth. Exobiosphere, based in Luxembourg, will fly a biotechnology payload to perform pharmaceutical and healthcare experiments.
“These partnerships reflect a growing global recognition that microgravity is not just a research environment, but a catalyst for transformative breakthroughs,” said Max Haot, chief executive of Vast, in a statement.
Haven-1 can host 10 middeck lockers for research payloads. Most of those have now been sold to those partners or are being reserved by Vast for use by the crews that will visit the station. “Right now, we think we want to sell one or two more, maximum,” he said in an interview during the 40th Space Symposium.
Interest in those payload accommodations is growing as Haven-1 nears its launch next year. “At the beginning it took a bit more convincing,” he said. “Now we have more opportunities than slots.”
The payload partners said they were attracted by the capabilities of Haven-1 and the option to do research on a platform other than the ISS. “Vast’s Haven-1 Lab offers state-of-the-art in-space research and science facilities for our high-throughput screening platforms. Partnering with Vast propels our vision to revolutionize drug discovery,” said Kyle Acierno, chief executive of Exobiosphere, in a statement.
The middeck lockers use the same standard as those on the ISS, but with different aesthetics. On Haven-1, the lockers will be located behind wood paneling on one end of the module that opens up to access the payloads. “The idea is that when they aren’t using the payloads, the crew can close it and have a more relaxing experience,” Haot said.
Vast will use Haven-1, which will be visited by four short-duration crewed missions, to gain experience for its larger Haven-2 station it proposes to develop for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations program. The company also seeks to gain spaceflight experience by flying one or more private astronaut missions, or PAMs, to the ISS through a new solicitation by NASA for such missions.
Vast announced April 10 an agreement with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), which operates the national lab portion of the ISS for NASA, to collaborate on research those PAMs could perform.
“One of the requirements to do science on the ISS is to reach an agreement with the ISS National Lab, with CASIS,” Haot said in the interview. “It’s basically opening the door to ISS science for Vast.”
