The European Space Agency has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Vast to explore the possibility of crewed missions to the company’s planned commercial space stations.
Signed on 6 June at the Berlin International Airshow in Germany on, the agreement is part of the agency’s efforts to enable a smooth transition away from operations aboard the International Space Station (ISS) once the orbiting laboratory is retired in 2030.
The agreement outlines several opportunities for the pair to collaborate, the most obvious being crewed missions to the company’s first planned space station, Haven-1. According to the announcement, the station is expected to be launched no earlier than August 2025, enabling ESA astronaut missions to the station to begin as early as 2026.
“Today, ESA has further proven its determination to play a crucial role into the further development of the LEO economy in space for Europe and European citizens,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher explained in a statement. “This signature underlines once again ESA’s ambition to modernise itself and to meet the demands of the next era of the space economy.”
In addition to missions to Vast space stations, the agreement also includes provisions for the supply of cargo and crew flights aboard European spacecraft and the potential for those services to offset future ESA astronaut missions. This would enable spacecraft currently being developed under the agency’s LEO Cargo Return Service initiative to offer services to Vast through the agency.
Vast is the third commercial space station company that ESA has signed an agreement with to explore possible alternative destinations in preparation for the ISS’s retirement. In late 2023, the agency signed agreements with both Axiom Space and the Starlab consortium to explore the possibility of sending European astronauts to the planned space stations.
