US firm Vast eyes Isro’s Gaganyaan for crewed missions to its commercial space station: Report

NEW DELHI: US-based firm Vast, which plans to launch the first commercial space station globally next year, has shown its keen interest in utilising Indian rockets to ferry crew to its orbital facility.Vast's chief executive, Max Haot, met the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) leadership team on the sidelines of the global space exploration conference in New Delhi to explore potential space technology partnerships.The space-habitation company is in the race to build a space station that will be the successor to the International Space Station, which will be retired by 2031.Haot expresses enthusiasm about India's Gaganyaan initiative, scheduled for human spaceflight by early 2027, and wishes to accommodate science payloads on the station."We are interested in flying payloads in science from India. The other interest we have is the possibility of using Gaganyaan rockets as a transport service for our space station," he said in an interview with PTI.Nasa established a five-year, unfunded Space Act Agreement with Vast in 2023, aiming to support the company's "concept maturation and eventual implementation of space station modules".The California company Vast intended to deploy Haven-1, a single-module space station, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2026."Right now, we are on track with our launch for May 2026," Haot told PTI in an interview.The Haven-1 spacecraft, with 45 cubic metres of space, can accommodate four crew members for typical two-week missions.The facility includes four sleeping quarters, numerous mid-deck storage units for science modules, a shared space with a fold-out 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.With India's plans for its own space station, Vast welcomes collaboration with Isro regarding Haven facilities."Space is one of the most amazing collaborative fields in the world. And so, we are extremely open to ideas. Some of the ideas that were being discussed is, you know, maybe we can offer access to our space station but also get access to that (India's) space station and share capacity or share size," Haot said."We definitely see a lot of opportunities if, obviously, India and the Isro welcome us to collaborate, especially as our two countries are politically very friendly," he said.