Vast prepares Haven One as commercial successor to ISS
California startup Vast is preparing Haven One, a commercial space station planned to replace the International Space Station after NASA retires it in 2030.
How it was covered
- BBC News was the only channel found covering it.
- Channel 5, BBC One, Channel 4, GB News, ITV and Sky News: not found in tracked broadcasts.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story. Facts only one channel reported are attributed to it.
Vast, a startup based in Long Beach, California, is preparing Haven One, a commercial space station it hopes will take over from the International Space Station. The company describes Haven One as the world's first commercial space station, with a planned launch in 2027. The aluminium capsule is 10 by 4 metres and has been custom designed for the role.
The ISS is nearly 30 years old and is the longest permanently inhabited outpost in space. It has supported astronauts from the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada and Russia in research about the universe. NASA plans to retire it in 2030, and a range of companies and organisations are racing to replace it. While NASA decides who will build the successor, Vast is moving ahead with its own commercially owned and operated station.
In a clean room for final integration, Vast showed the primary structure for Haven One. The company says raw material is milled, rolled, welded and tested on site to produce the capsule. Visitors need protective suits to see the interior, which is still taking shape. A full-scale copy of the spacecraft has been built on Earth as a crew training facility.
Vast lead astronaut Drew Feustel, a former NASA astronaut who commanded the ISS and spent 197 days in space, helped design the interior. The company aims for a functional but sleek, minimalist layout, with a control panel, work space, eating area and sleeping quarters. Its beds use an air bladder that pushes against the astronaut to simulate gravity while they rest. Feustel said the ISS interior had become a tangle of wires and that Vast wanted to package systems better.
Vast says Haven One can be as effective as the ISS at much lower cost. Part of its funding comes from cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb. The company says manufacturing its own parts quickly, mass producing modules and insourcing key technologies could cut costs by at least a factor of 10. It plans to build many modules and relies on SpaceX to launch its stations into orbit. Space agencies that partner with Vast are expected to book seats. The company frames the work as a race against time as the ISS approaches retirement and eventually splashes back down to Earth.
Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, grouped by how many channels reported each one. Select a dot to see the source excerpt.
| Claim |  |
|---|---|
| Only on one channel | |
| NASA plans to retire the International Space Station in 2030, and companies and organisations are competing to replace it. | |
| Vast described Haven One as the world's first commercial space station, with a planned launch in 2027. | |
| Vast said mass production and insourcing key technologies could reduce costs by at least a factor of 10. | |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
The BBC report is a feature-style tour of Vast's Long Beach facility. It frames Haven One as a possible future of human spaceflight and a commercially owned successor to the ISS. The tone is curious and largely positive, with cost and design claims presented through company access and a former NASA astronaut, while safety, regulation and competition are not examined.
- “Is this massive capsule the future of human exploration in space? A startup in Long Beach, California called Vast thinks so.”
- “We're very excited to contribute to this new version of space, which instead of being government owned and operated, it's commercially owned and operated, and we are here to build it.”
- “We are in a race against time. So by going faster, by doing mass production and by insourcing all key technologies, that's how we can reduce the cost by a factor of 10 at least.”
Who was on air
People and organisations each channel put on air while covering this story. Channels' own presenters and reporters are not listed. Names as transcribed, and the list can miss people.
- 20:42 BST
Drew Feustel, Vast lead astronaut, former NASA astronaut
Newscast · Sat 24 Oct
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.