Vast wraps $500M round as company vies for NASA space station contract
Vast missed the first round of NASA awards for the next International Space Station, but that’s not stopping the company from moving on to the second phase.
CEO Max Haot told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan this week that the company is betting on “a bounce-back strategy” and plans to create and launch a successful strategy. space station to prove your skills.
“If we do all of these things, or are on track to do them, I think NASA will be impossible to ignore in terms of the hardware we have,” he said.
Vast getting ready to launch Port-1 commercial space station next year, raised $500 million in a financing round led by Balerion Space InitiativesWith the participation of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Last month, the company announced that NASA sixth special astronaut mission To the ISS.
The funding round comes at a critical time for space investment, ahead of SpaceX’s potential mega-IPO this year. This week, another startup, Sierra Space, closed down. $550 million financing roundand both SpaceX and Rocket Lab They had launches.
Investors are pouring more money into space technology as President Donald Trump aims to return the United States to the moon for the first time in 50 years. At the same time, private companies are racing to produce components to support the ISS alternative, which will be retired by 2030.
Congress It is also working to allow NASA to operate the ISS through 2032.
After months of leadership uncertainty, NASA has finally named Jared Isaacson as administrator, a year after Trump first nominated the private astronaut and Elon Musk ally.
Under his direction, the space agency has launched a major overhaul of the Artemis lunar program, which has been plagued by launch delays and safety concerns as the United States pushes to establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface.
“We haven’t forgotten our history books, but the way we’re doing things right now, launching missions every three and a half years and doing giant leaps, going around the moon and landing on the moon, isn’t going to work,” Isaacman told Brennan at a16z’s American Dynamism summit this week.
Aiming to make Vast the best producer of human habitats in space, Haot is also investing in partnerships with Europe and Japan and achieving profitability with a low-cost approach.
“We will be ready for the call to replace the ISS,” he said. “I believe we will be successful, and perhaps in the end there will be room for much more.”
