WASHINGTON \u2014 Commercial space station developer Vast has raised $500 million in its first significant outside investment round.<\/p>\n
Vast announced March 5 it has closed a $300 million Series A equity round along with $200 million in debt. The round was led by Balerion Space Ventures with participation from IQT, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Mitsui & Co., MUFG, Nikon, Stellar Ventures, Space Capital and Earthrise Ventures.<\/p>\n
The company had been funded until now by Jed McCaleb, the cryptocurrency billionaire who founded the company. McCaleb also participated in the new round.<\/p>\n
\u201cVast was founded with a long-term vision of billions of people living and thriving in space. Achieving a goal of this magnitude requires deliberate steppingstones, and our strategy of building, testing and iterating with real hardware is delivering results,\u201d McCaleb said in a statement. \u201cIt is exciting to welcome additional investors who recognize Vast\u2019s long-term potential and share our belief in making this vision a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the new funding round, Vast had invested more than $1 billion into building up the company and developing a line of commercial space stations. The company, based in Long Beach, California, now has more than 1,000 employees.<\/p>\n
The company is currently building Haven-1, a single-module space station scheduled to launch in early 2027. It is intended to be a precursor to the multi-module Haven-2 station the company intends to offer NASA through the agency\u2019s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations, or CLD, program.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur key differentiator is that we don\u2019t believe we can start with that,\u201d Max Haot, chief executive of Vast, said of Haven-2 during a panel discussion at the ASCENDxTexas conference Feb. 25. \u201cWe believe we need steppingstones to make sure it\u2019s safe and also to make sure that we prove to ourselves and our partners that we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vast launched last year Haven Demo, a small satellite to test key subsystems planned for use on Haven-1. Haot said at the conference that the company safely deorbited the spacecraft in recent weeks after completing those on-orbit tests.<\/p>\n
The company also won Feb. 12 a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station<\/a>, scheduled for no earlier than mid-2027. It will be similar to those flown by another commercial space station developer, Axiom Space, which has completed four such missions and has an award for a fifth in early 2027.<\/p>\n Vast and other commercial space station developers are waiting for NASA to release the final request for proposals (RFP) for the second phase of the CLD program. Delays in the release of that procurement was one reason cited in a NASA authorization bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee March 4<\/a> for extending the life of the ISS by two years, to the end of 2032.<\/p>\n \u201cThe RFP should come out when [NASA Administrator] Jared Isaacman and potentially the White House and other stakeholders are ready,\u201d Haot said at the conference. \u201cI think there\u2019s some urgency, but I think Jared and them team will get it out as soon as they can.\u201d<\/p>\n On that panel, which included representatives of several other space station developers, Haot said that Vast was counting on NASA and other space agencies for much of the initial business for its space stations, rather than emerging markets like microgravity manufacturing or pharmaceutical research.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the long term, we all want the LEO economy to thrive. We want to be making drugs in space,\u201d he said. \u201cIn our internal projections, in our fundraising and our business model, we have close to zero dollars for the LEO economy in the next five years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be profitable on the current market,\u201d he said, which he described as NASA and other Western ISS partners, along with a \u201cgrowth market\u201d of emerging space agencies and a small number of \u201cself-funded\u201d individuals.<\/p>\n