US-based firm Vast keen to collaborate with ISRO on Bharat Antariksh Station

Vast has offered to collaborate with ISRO. India plans to launch the first module of the Bharat Antariksh Station in 2028 and complete it by 2035.

New Delhi: US-based space habitation company Vast has offered to collaborate with ISRO for the Bharat Antariksh Station that the Indian space agency plans to set up by 2035.

Vast CEO Max Haot held discussions with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials earlier this month for a possible collaboration in the field of space technology and offered to host Indian scientists and engineers on the space station his company plans to send to orbit next year.

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The California-based company plans to launch Haven-1, a single-module space station, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2026. With a mission life of three years, Haven-1 is a precursor to Haven-2, which Vast hopes would qualify as a successor to the International Space Station that will be retired in 2031.

The International Space Station is a collaborative effort of the US, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency. China also launched its space station, ‘Tiangong’, in 2021 and has maintained human presence in space.

“Some of the ideas that were being discussed are, you know, maybe we can offer access to our space station but also get access to that space station and share capacity or share size,” Haot said.

India plans to launch the first module of the Bharat Antariksh Station in 2028 and complete it by 2035. “We definitely see a lot of opportunities if obviously India and ISRO welcome it to collaborate, especially (given) that our two countries are politically very friendly,” Haot said.

“Right now, the other two human spaceflight-capable countries (Russia and China) are not in the same acceptable region for current US politics. So, that creates a unique situation where we might have two human spaceflight-capable countries that can work together,” he added.

In 2023, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed a five-year, unfunded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with Vast, with the stated purpose of helping the company’s “concept maturation and eventual implementation of space station modules”. The Haven-1 spacecraft has a 45-metre-cubed volume and is designed to support up to four crew members for missions of an average of two weeks in length.

It consists of four crew quarters for sleeping, several mid-deck lockers for science modules, a common area with a deployable table and multiple crew interfaces.

“Right now, we are solely focused on the SpaceX offering, but we are interested to hear whether there will be a competitive, reliable, safe option that we can use to bring our customers using the Gaganyaan vehicle to our space station,” Haot said.