Vast, the commercial space station developer building the Haven-1 spacecraft, has established a dedicated Lunar Programs division to help advance NASA’s vision for a permanently crewed Moon Base. According to company announcements, the new division applies Vast’s existing satellite and space station architecture to help build humanity’s first lunar outpost.
Vast Lunar Programs Division and NASA Moon Base Goals
The newly formed division builds directly upon the technologies, systems, and operational experience developed through the Haven-1 program, according to Vast. Haven-1 is targeted to launch as the world’s first commercial space station by 2027 and is currently undergoing final integration inside the clean room at Vast headquarters in Long Beach, California. By leveraging large, crew-rated space infrastructure, life support systems, thermal control systems, avionics, and power systems from its commercial station heritage, Vast is positioning itself to meet NASA’s lunar infrastructure demands.
NASA plans to ramp up lunar activity over the coming years by working with American industry to continuously deliver payloads to the lunar surface and orbit. “Vast has the manufacturing capability, flight heritage, and technical expertise needed to help build humanity’s first lunar outpost,” said Max Haot, CEO of Vast, in an official statement. Haot added that vertical integration of engineering, manufacturing, and testing allows the company to move with the speed, efficiency, and safety demanded by this national imperative.
Phased Hardware Roadmap for Lunar Infrastructure
To align with NASA’s vision for a phased and iterative Moon Base designed to build capabilities over time, Vast is proposing a hardware-driven roadmap divided into three distinct phases:
Phase 1: Establish reliable access to the surface and experiment by deploying foundational infrastructure and conducting technology demonstrations to reduce risk for future crewed systems.
Phase 2: Enable initial Moon Base operations by introducing permanent surface elements that support operations and validate critical habitation technologies.
Phase 3: Support a semi-permanent crew presence by deploying the systems and infrastructure required to sustain long-duration, crewed operations on the lunar surface.
According to Colin Smith, Senior Vice President of Lunar Programs at Vast, executing crewed space systems successfully requires excellence across engineering, manufacturing, testing, safety, and mission operations. “Very few companies in the world are actually building crewed space systems,” Smith noted.
Planned Lunar Offerings and Communications Architecture
Vast’s proposed lunar architecture includes several primary hardware developments tailored to surface and orbital challenges:
Vast Power Station: A system focused on solar generation, energy storage, and power distribution to establish foundational energy infrastructure for subsequent lunar activities.
Haven-Derived Lunar Airlock: A free-standing airlock designed to validate solutions for near-term lunar surface challenges, including ingress, dust mitigation, pressure vessel reliability, extravehicular activity (EVA) suit compatibility, pumping operations, and surface placement techniques. Retiring these risks before deploying a full habitat module reduces technical risk and cost.
Lunar Habitat: A multi-module habitat designed to support long-duration crewed operations, equipped with life support, thermal control, avionics, communications systems, and crew consumables.
In addition to surface hardware, Vast’s lunar plans incorporate a proposed communications and positioning constellation for continuous lunar south pole coverage and improved space situational awareness (SSA) for surface and orbital operations. This constellation is intended to complement NASA’s planned Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems network, reduce reliance on constrained shared assets like NASA’s Deep Space Network, and scale to broader lunar activity by adding orbital planes over time.
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