India's space station dreams: US startup eyes ISRO as key ally, offers seat aboard its 2026 orbiting lab

As India eyes the stars with its ambitious Bharat Antariksh Station, a new international player is looking to come aboard. US-based space habitation startup Vast has offered to partner with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the project, with a proposal that could see Indian engineers and scientists working aboard Vast’s own orbiting lab as early as next year.

In early May, Vast CEO Max Haot met with ISRO officials to discuss a possible collaboration in human spaceflight and space station development. Vast is set to launch Haven-1, a single-module private space station, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2026. With a mission life of three years, Haven-1 is intended to pave the way for Haven-2, which the company hopes will eventually fill the void left by the retiring International Space Station (ISS) in 2031.

Haven-1 is designed to support up to four astronauts for two-week missions, offering 45 cubic metres of living space. It includes four sleeping quarters, science lockers, a shared workspace, and multiple crew interfaces. While the station is currently built to work with SpaceX transport systems, Haot expressed interest in integrating India’s upcoming Gaganyaan crew vehicle as a potential alternative.

“Right now, we are solely focused on the SpaceX offering, but we are interested to hear whether there will be a competitive, reliable, safe option that we can use to bring our customers using the Gaganyaan vehicle to our space station," he said.

India, which aims to launch the first module of its Bharat Antariksh Station by 2028 and complete the facility by 2035, could find a strategic partner in Vast. “We definitely see a lot of opportunities if obviously India and ISRO welcome it to collaborate, especially (given) that our two countries are politically very friendly,” Haot told PTI. “Right now, the other two human spaceflight-capable countries (Russia and China) are not in the same acceptable region for current US politics. So, that creates a unique situation where we might have two human spaceflight-capable countries that can work together.”

The ISS, a cooperative venture between the US, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency, has long been a symbol of international collaboration in orbit. Meanwhile, China launched its own space station 'Tiangong' in 2021 and maintains a consistent human presence in space.

NASA has also thrown its support behind Vast’s vision, signing a five-year, unfunded Space Act Agreement in 2023 to aid in the maturation of the company’s space station concepts.

(With inputs from PTI)