PANews March 21 news, according to Cointelegraph, Jed McCaleb, a serial entrepreneur who founded the crypto exchange Mt. Gox and co-founded Ripple, shared new details of his space station company Vast, which he hopes will help humans expand into a multi-planet species. In an interview with Bloomberg on March 20, McCaleb confirmed that Vast is expected to launch Haven-1, a commercial space station still under construction, into orbit by May 2026. If McCaleb's startup succeeds, it will have a better chance of winning a lucrative contract from NASA to replace the International Space Station. The contract is expected to be issued in mid-2026. If Vast fails or loses the NASA contract to a competitor, McCaleb's net worth could be reduced by $1 billion, and the business prospects of his space station company will be questioned. "Not many people are willing to invest as much resources, time and risk tolerance as I do," McCaleb said.
Vast is building its spacecraft using components developed by SpaceX, such as the docking adapter that connects SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft to Vast's space station, and the space internet system that provides WiFi on the space station through Starlink. McCaleb's company has also booked flights with SpaceX to get its hardware into orbit and crews to its space station, and SpaceX has agreed to fly astronauts for Vast, as long as NASA approves it. Vast is competing with companies such as Axiom Space, Voyager Space Holdings, Lockheed Martin, and Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, to win NASA's next major contract.
