The race to replace the ageing International Space Station is heating up after US company Vast announced a mission to fly an astronaut to its planned Haven-1 station next year.<\/p>\n
If the repeatedly delayed Haven-1 is launched into orbit as scheduled in early 2027, it will become history\u2019s first commercial space station, beating out several competitors.<\/p>\n
It would also mark a post-ISS era for humanity\u2019s presence in space, as the West seeks independence from Russian space operations due to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
After a quarter of a century being continuously inhabited, the ISS is scheduled to be deorbited in 2030.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Vast became the first aerospace company to announce a crewed mission to its future station.<\/p>\n
This is an important milestone in a new era in crewed spaceflight that is less expensive \u2014 and less reliant on Russia, Vast CEO Max Haot told AFP in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Attractive prices\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
French astronaut Arnaud Prost \u201cis joining us on the crew of the inaugural mission of what will be the world\u2019s first operational commercial space station when it launches next year\u201d, Haot said.<\/p>\n
On board Haven-1, Prost will be tasked with carrying out tests ahead of scientific experiments, which will be similar to those conducted on the ISS, he explained.<\/p>\n
The privately funded station will have a single module, compared to 16 currently on the ISS.<\/p>\n
During its three years in orbit, it will \u201chost four two-week missions,\u201d Haot said.<\/p>\n
Vast has bigger plans for its replacement.<\/p>\n
Haven-2 will eventually have nine modules, but the company plans to deploy them gradually over time.<\/p>\n
This will mean the modules cost \u201cfive to 10 times lower\u201d than those for the ISS, which often exceeded a billion dollars, Haot said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will allow us to increase the number of crewed flights and offer more attractive prices to our customers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to launch three modules per year for our future station \u2014 and that at least one module will be launched by a European rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company aims to have four modules in space by 2030, which would support six-month missions on board.<\/p>\n
Other US aerospace companies also have plans to launch commercial space stations, including Axiom Space and Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019s Blue Origin.<\/p>\n
The California-based Vast, which was founded in 2021 by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, acknowledges it entered the race late.<\/p>\n
But the company now claims to be two years ahead of its rivals, citing contracts with NASA.<\/p>\n
\u2013 European HQ \u2013<\/p>\n
Also on Tuesday, Vast announced a mission to send French astronaut Thomas Pesquet to the ISS next year. The company also plans to open its European headquarters in Paris.<\/p>\n
For both new missions, Vast will use SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon 2 capsule to get the astronauts into space.<\/p>\n
When asked about relying on billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s company, Haot said SpaceX\u2019s \u201cunique\u201d approach emphasised \u201cspeed and rocket reusability\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a model for everyone \u2014 and it\u2019s the future of space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf SpaceX had not succeeded in creating Dragon, Vast would not exist. And the United States and Europe would still be dependent on Russia to send humans into space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite many international cooperation agreements falling apart after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States and other ISS partners have continued working with Russia on the space station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The race to replace the ageing International Space Station is heating up after US company Vast announced a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,1452,17,134543,133,451],"class_list":["post-518396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-mna","tag-science","tag-space"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116692275311086401","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}