Haven-1 testing at the company’s facility in Mojave, California. Credit: Vast

Father Time has a funny way of sneaking up on us. It’s somehow been nearly four years since NASA announced the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program, its plan to replace the International Space Station. There are five American companies leading work on private space station projects that, on paper, would help NASA do just that.

And we’re now about five years away from when NASA plans for the ISS to “retire,” in what will effectively be a fiery burial at sea ceremony. Both government and industry leaders alike have emphasized the importance of avoiding a gap in low Earth orbit – i.e., not ending up in a position like the U.S. did when the Space Shuttle retired, waiting almost a decade for a replacement capability.

Recall, too, that last year we addressed the driving force behind why that gap is seen as dangerous: China. Unlike the simultaneous race to get astronauts back on the moon, the Chinese already have a crewed space station in LEO called Tiangong.

Each of the five private space stations efforts underway — led by Axiom, Blue Origin, Gravitics, Vast and Voyager — have varying timelines for how soon their initial modules will get in orbit. I reached out to each of these companies this week to get the most up-to-date timelines for their projects. All but Blue Origin responded, so here’s the latest rundown on when those launches are planned:

While I’d like to believe that Orbital Reef’s first module will launch by 2027, the asterisk comes from information on that target being dated and Blue Origin not responding to my request to confirm that it’s still accurate.

Eagle-eyed followers of this subsector will also note that Sierra Space’s planned LIFE Pathfinder demonstration mission is missing from that list. That’s because a Sierra spokesperson told me yesterday that the plan has been abandoned, as “our focus has shifted to further development work in order to meet NASA CLD Phase 2 RFP, which will drop sometime this year.”

Look, I know that statement needs a little context. The first phase of CLD, focused on design and development, is underway — here’s a helpful rundown from last fall on progress and upcoming milestones — and NASA is preparing to begin soliciting bids for contracts under Phase 2, which will see the agency paying for services on these space stations. So Sierra is foregoing its planned demo mission to focus on that bid.

Leading the list is Vast’s first mission, a company not yet in the CLD program. Vast, founded shortly after NASA announced CLD, this morning posted an extensive update on its work toward its inaugural space station, called Haven-1. While the May 2026 launch represents a delay of about a year from Vast’s previous goal, it still puts the company’s first station well ahead of others, in what Vast CEO Max Haot described as a “leapfrog strategy” for the company’s CLD Phase 2 bid with its Haven-2 station.

“That puts us in a position that we think — assuming we deliver on Haven-1 on the timeline laid out there — that we will be the most credible company to bet on that can actually do it in just a little bit over two years,” Haot said.

Crucially, Vast just set the bar for how to be taken seriously as a space station company, with transparency around when it aims to complete milestones leading up to the first crewed mission reaching Haven-1. Every other company working on a space station take note:

No small detail in Vast’s plan is its self-funding. The company’s founder, cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, is putting his money to work at Vast, disclosing more than $1 billion in investment to get Haven-1 operational.

But even Vast knows that NASA contracts are make-or-break for its future plans, a factor which is equally true for the other efforts underway, except for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Closing the business case for a private space station requires getting NASA onboard. Haot estimated that NASA represents about 35% to 45% of the market for space station services, making the agency “the biggest customer in the world right now” for any of these projects.

“And all the international partners want to go where NASA goes,” Haot added. “If I don’t have NASA as a customer … how can I raise money? How can I survive?”

Michael Sheetz is CNBC’s space reporter – send tips, talent moves and more to michael.sheetz@nbcuni.com.

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