Technology

Vast Space: $500 million to produce space stations

Jed McCaleb's Californian start-up closes a round with Qatar Investment Authority, In-Q-Tel and others. Its Haven-1 station slips, but a NASA contract for a mission to the Iss arrives

by Emilio Cozzi

9 March 2026

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Five hundred million dollars to build the commercial future of low orbit. Vast Space, the Californian start-up founded in 2021 by cryptocurrency wizard Jed McCaleb, has closed a round in two tranches: 300 million in Series A equity and 200 million in debt. The funds will be used to expand production facilities to accelerate the development of the company's orbiting stations, the Haven series.

With this round, the total investment in the project exceeds $1 billion. Vast has hardware in integration, contracts with NASA, and a roadmap concrete enough to attract Gulf sovereign capital. In fact, the Texan Balerion Space Ventures led the operation, flanked by an international consortium, capable of recounting, on its own, the new geographies of space capital: the American In-Q-Tel, the Qatar Investment Authority, Mitsui & Co., MUFG, Nikon, Stellar Ventures, Space Capital and Earthrise Ventures. McCaleb himself participated.

As part of the agreement, A.C. Charania, advisor to Balerion Space Ventures and former chief technologist at Nasa, will join the board of directors: a sign of how Vast Space is building the institutional credibility it will need in the most important game: to become a reference operator after the decommissioning of the International Space Station (the Iss), now expected around 2030 (Congress permitting).

The project will begin to materialise with Haven 1, the company's first commercial station, whose launch into orbit has been postponed to the first quarter of 2027 (compared to initial forecasts, which placed it in 2025 and then 2026). The delay was accompanied by good news: in February, Vast was awarded a contract by NASA for a private mission with astronauts to the ISS, expected in the second half of next year. Even before having its own station in orbit, the company is securing the kind of operational precedent that Nasa requires of candidates in the Commercial Leo Destinations programme, the tender around which the post-Iss is being played out.

(credit: Vast Space)

With an initial endowment of $415 million allocated in 2021, Nasa aims to fund one or more commercial successors. Following Northrop Grumman's withdrawal, funds have focused on Starlab (by Voyager Space, Nanoracks and Airbus) and Orbital Reef (by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's aerospace company). Vast aims to enter the final selection, the timing of which is still uncertain, as the only bidder with previous orbital experience.

The strategy is openly modelled on that of SpaceX. "We are lagging behind our competitors," he told these pages Max Haot, the ceo of Vast, on the sidelines of the IAC 2024 in Milan, "what can we do to win? Our answer will be the launch of Haven 1'. Not a definitive vehicle, but a demonstration: four people in orbit for a fortnight, then safe re-entry. Just as SpaceX had done with the reusable Falcon 9 before bidding for big government contracts. From Elon Musk's company, Vast also drew part of its engineering staff and approach to the market.

Founded four years ago, Vast now employs more than a thousand people. Before setting his sights on space, McCaleb, 49, built his fortune - estimated at over $2.4 billion in 2024 - with the peer-to-peer networks eDonkey and Overnet and the bitcoin exchanger Mt. Gox. The well-informed murmur that he has Musk behind him, but officialdom only confirms elective affinities: identical approach to the market and very similar vehicle and equipment design, to the point of making it difficult to distinguish Haven modules from SpaceX products.

With Haven 2, Vast will aim for the real stakes: taking over the International Space Station. According to the company's plans, Haven-2 will consist of nine modules, the first ready by 2028 - so as to offer two years of testing before the retirement of the Iss - the last four between 2031 and 2032. The central element, seven metres in diameter, will house an extravehicular activity chamber and a robotic arm. 'We guarantee the United States, but also Italia, that the first module will be ready by 2028,' Haot pointed out, 'we will not have to worry about being without a station after the retirement of the Iss'. The mention of Italia is not accidental: Vast is actively courting the Iss's partner agencies, aware that, in funding decisions, the geopolitical dimension of the orbital garrison will weigh as much as the technical one.

It is Vast's final horizon that distinguishes it from the competition: before Haven 1 concludes its operations, the company plans to rotate it to artificially replicate lunar gravity on an unmanned payload. This will be an important test for what Haot calls 'the long-term goal': to build stations with artificial gravity. "We know that in weightlessness we can live a year or so, and in conditions that are not easy," said the CEO, "perhaps lunar or Martian gravity is enough to live a lifetime comfortably. The only way to find out is to build stations with artificial gravity'.

Much will depend on the coming months: on the outcome of the mission to the Iss, the launch of Haven-1, and the possible award of the Cld contract. In Milan, Haot had winked: 'maybe we will have an Italia commander. Anything is possible'.