Max Hoat, CEO. Photo: X/@Maxhaot
The U.S.-based company is sprawling with plans to build the world’s first commercial space station next year, indicating interest in using an Indian rocket to transport crews to its orbital lab.
Max Hoat, the sprawling CEO, met with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) leadership team on the sidelines of the Global Space Exploration Conference here to discuss possible collaborations in the field of space technology.
The spacecraft company is competing to build a space station that will become the successor of the International Space Station, which will retire in 2031.
The California-based company plans to launch Haven-1, a single-model space station, on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2026.
“Currently, we are in the launch in May 2026,” Mr Hoat told PTI in an interview.
A series of tests are planned at the space station before flying astronauts to orbital laboratories by July next year. The first module of Haven-2 is a larger space station, which is expected to be launched in 2028.
Mr. Hoat is excited about the Gaganyaan project in India, which plans to conduct human spaceflight by early 2027 and is keen on receiving scientific payloads on the space station.
“We are interested in driving scientific payloads from India. Another benefit we have is the use of Gaganyaan Rockets as a transportation service for our space station,” he said.
India’s heavy launcher marker III plans to bring the Gaganyaan mission to low-Earth orbit in early 2027. The LVM-3 rocket has been used for commercial missions such as launching OneWeb satellites in orbit.
In 2023, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed a five-year, funded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with a huge, established purpose designed to help the company’s “concept mature and ultimately implement the Space Station Module.”
The Haven-1 spacecraft, with a volume of 45 meters, is designed to provide an average of two-week missions to up to four crew members.
It consists of four crew dormitories for sleep, several mid-deck lockers for science modules, a common area for deploying tables and multiple crew interfaces.
“At the moment, we are only focusing on SpaceX products, but we are interested in hearing if there is a competitive, reliable, safe option that we can use to bring customers to our space station using Gaganyaan vehicles,” Hoat said.
As India plans to have its own space station, VAST is also opening up cooperation with ISRO for use in safe haven facilities.
“Space is one of the most amazing areas of collaboration in the world. So we’re very open to ideas. Some of the ideas you know are, maybe we can access our space station, but we can also access this (Indian) space station and share capacity or share capacity or share scale,” Mr Hoat said.
“If India and ISRO obviously welcome us to work together, especially because our two countries are very politically friendly, we will definitely see a lot of opportunities,” he said.
Mr Hoat said the other two countries with human space capabilities – Russia and China – are not the same acceptable region for current American politics.
“So this creates a unique situation where we may have two human space flying countries that can work together,” Mr Hoat said.
publishing – May 11, 2025-2:45 IST
