Vast is getting into the bus business.
The commercial space station company announced this morning that it would start selling satellite buses, specifically targeting the low-cost, high-volume, high-power niche for missions from comms, to EO, to national-security programs. Vast also plans to offer customers the option to add NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin Space-1 module to the bus for missions including orbital data centers, AI edge compute, and autonomous space operations.
Vast already has its first customer for the 15-kW-class bus—an unnamed client who will buy four sats, but who has the option to buy up to 200 more.
“Successful space companies are always diversified,” CEO Max Haot told Payload. “It was always in our plan to diversify, and we always felt that the satellite platform was a really great fit.”
Haot said the new business line is not tied to proposed changes announced in March to NASA’s commercial space station procurement, as the ISS nears the end of its service.
Cross over tech: Haot said that most of the bus tech—including batteries, flight computers, sensors, flight software, and GNC—has already been vertically integrated as part of the Haven-1 space station program. Many pieces of the future bus also already have flight heritage, after flying on the company’s Haven Demo mission to LEO last year.
“We’ve been working for three years on a high powered satellite bus that just has humans inside,” he said.
There are just two new pieces of tech that will be required for the bus, Haot said:
- High power, low cost solar arrays;
- Electric propulsion.
However, Haot said those capabilities would be necessary for Haven-2, so they were already in development.
What’s next: Vast intends to launch its first 10 satellites in late 2027. In the meantime, it’s going to be adding to its new dedicated satellite team, which is expected to grow from 10 to ~50 people next year.
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