The French are developing a taste for space. While Sophie Adenot is still on board the International Space Station (ISS), Thomas Pesquet – who needs no introduction – and Arnaud Prost – reserve astronaut – will participate in two manned flights in 2027. These missions will be carried out within the framework of a partnership concluded between France and a private American company, the Californian start-up Vast, which aims to build a new space base to replace the ISS.
The announcement of these two new space missions was made on Monday June 1 by Emmanuel Macron, on the sidelines of the Choose France summit, while Vast had just announced the establishment of its European headquarters in Paris. “This agreement shows the recognition by the international community of French expertise in human space flight, both that of our astronauts and that of the French teams in the preparation and execution of missions,” welcomed the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes).
The two missions are distinct. Thomas Pesquet should take command of an American capsule to fly to the ISS where he will participate in a private space mission for Vast, in partnership with NASA. His departure is scheduled for the summer of 2027 at the earliest. Astronaut Arnaud Prost will take part in an even more original adventure, since as an engineer he will carry out the first test flight aboard the Haven-1 capsule, developed by Vast, to constitute the first module of its future space base. The company thus intends to demonstrate the extent of its technological know-how and the progress of its project.
The planned end of the ISS
Because the days of the ISS are numbered. NASA, which deplores increasingly heavy maintenance costs, announced its scrapping from January 2031. A vast call for tenders was therefore launched from companies around the world to replace it. The American space agency thus hopes to make savings, on the same model that has developed around human flights with companies like SpaceX. A new era, that of private space stations, is therefore about to emerge.
Four projects are being developed to try to land this pharaonic contract. NASA plans to select two, to whom it will entrust a budget of 1.5 billion dollars to build a station capable of welcoming four astronauts for thirteen days. Key players in the sector have entered the race: Blue Origin, in cooperation with Boeing; Airbus with its partner Mitsubishi; or even Thales. Faced with these giants, the most advanced program seems to be that of the young Californian company Vast, which is the first to have announced a test flight for one of its modules.
This Californian start-up, founded in 2021 by Jed McCaleb, a billionaire who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies and software, is based in Long Beach near Los Angeles and employs nearly 1,000 people. In five years, it succeeded in setting up the infrastructure necessary for the manufacture and operation of a commercial space station. Its ambition: to create the very first “low cost” private space station.
The start-up that challenges the giants
To do this, Vast proposes to build the future station from small modules, which can be sent into space like large satellites by conventional launchers, such as Falcon or Ariane 6. Four assembled modules could serve as a permanent base for astronauts. The very first, the habitable Haven-1 capsule, is about to be finalized, with a little delay since its launch into orbit planned for May 2026 has been postponed to 2027. It is in this mission that the Frenchman Arnaud Prost will participate. This will be followed by the creation of a larger capsule, Haven-2, which could be put into orbit as early as 2028.
Vast then plans to market his station as a laboratory. “Our space station will ultimately have several types of customers,” explained Max Haot, the general director of Vast, during his visit to France. “Not only NASA, but also its European, Japanese, Australian counterparts, etc. (…). Our clients will include large companies in the pharmaceutical or electronics world, who will pay for our services to conduct certain experiments in microgravity. » The company, which always sees further, would also like to develop future habitats and systems intended for the Moon and Mars.
