The race among commercial companies to replace the International Space Station may have a frontrunner in the company Vast with a partnership with SpaceX — but a delay in development has pushed launch of its Haven-1 station from Florida into 2026.

But that still puts it at least one year ahead of its closest competitor.

The Long Beach, California-based company posted an update on progress made on its planned small space station — with a habitable area about the size of a moving truck — saying it now targets a launch from Space Coast atop a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than May 2026.

It also posted plans, though, to quickly follow up that launch with a crewed mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon with four astronauts on a two-week mission to Haven-1 by the end of June 2026.

“When we launched the Haven-1 program, we set a target of launching no earlier than August 2025, giving ourselves a two-year, three-month development window,” the company stated in its update. “With the completion of our primary structure qualification test and a fully assembled team, we now have greater clarity on our build and launch schedule. As a result, we are updating our timeline.”

What would amount to about a 10-month delay from original plans isn’t without successes. It began in July building out a test version of the Haven-1 primary structure, completing it in less than six months.

Testing began on that qualification model last month, and now the company has also begun construction on what would be the final hardware to fly into space, which it expects to complete this July.

“Vast is producing space station primary structures in-house at an unprecedented pace — under six months per hull,” the company touted. “This efficiency sets a new benchmark in space station manufacturing and is a key differentiator in our bid to succeed the ISS.”

Meanwhile, with the qualification structure having already surpassed pressure leak tests, the company still has more tests coming up to simulate the stresses the little space station will endure when it finally launches atop the Falcon 9 rocket.

The ISS is slated to end operations in 2030 and NASA, under its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, had previously awarded several contracts for companies to come up with plans for a freestanding commercial space station. The goal for NASA is to become a customer of such a space station as opposed to running it.

Vast, which wasn’t founded until 2021, missed out on those development awards, but the company’s goals are for it to be considered when the time comes that NASA awards larger contracts to help the companies actually go and build the space stations.

Other companies vying for NASA funds to build a commercial space station include Axiom Space, Blue Origin and Starlab Space.

Vast’s plan is to win such a contract so it can build a larger version called Haven-2.

“Recognizing the need for a leapfrog strategy, we developed Haven-1 to set us apart,” the company stated. “When NASA selects its partner to carry forward its low-Earth orbit legacy, we will be the only company operating a crewed space station — one we designed, built, tested, and verified for safety entirely in-house.”

Without any NASA funds, the company stated it will have invested more than $1 billion in Haven-1, but that investment will help show NASA it means business.

“‍At Vast, we believe that building a spacecraft under real-world budget and timeline constraints is the only way to develop the capabilities required for a successful space station,” the company stated. “Others focus solely on design milestones, but what works on paper often breaks down when faced with manufacturing, supply chain and testing realities.”

Having direct experience with the smaller Haven-1 is part of its strategy to win the contract for the bigger Haven-2, and showing how quickly it can turn around hardware plays into a timeline it expects NASA to embrace.

If NASA makes its selection in mid-2026 as is currently the plan, Vast expects it could launch the first module for the larger Haven-2 and have it ready to host crew as early as the end of 2028.

“‍We believe that it is imperative that the U.S. government have at least two years of overlap between its decommissioning and any successor station,” the company stated. “To fill this critical gap, Vast is committed to developing safe, capable space stations at unprecedented speed and cost efficiency.”