Vast Hero
Vast — Professional Experience
About Vast
Vast is a California-based space-habitation company building Haven-1, a commercial space station designed to enable affordable human research and habitation in low-Earth orbit.
Key Highlights
- 🚀 Launch Partnership: SpaceX Falcon 9 & Dragon missions
- 🌐 Connectivity: High-bandwidth Starlink internet onboard
- 🛰️ Haven-1 Capabilities: ~45 m³ habitable volume, 2-week missions for 4 astronauts
- 👨🚀 Crew Features: 1.1 m domed window, deployable communal table, personal quarters, shared 24 m³ work/leisure area
- 📈 Roadmap: Founded in 2021 by Jed McCaleb; Max Haot appointed CEO (2023). Haven-1 is targeting a NET May 2026 launch; Haven-2 is in development as a successor station under NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations program.
→ Learn more about Haven-1 on Vast’s website
My Role at Vast
Founding team member (6th employee). I’ve been part of Vast’s journey from the earliest days (out of what is now 1,000+ employees). My contributions span both hands-on engineering and team leadership:
Early Contributions
- 🔧 Propulsion Development — worked on first-generation methalox thrusters, gaining experience across design, build, and hot-fire testing.
Building Test Infrastructure
I established and led multiple cross-disciplinary test teams:
- Avionics Test — integrated benches, harness testing, and telemetry pipelines
- Mechanisms Test — structural, deployment, and motion systems validation
- ECLSS Test — subscale rigs, integrated module testing, contaminant control
- Controls & Automation — PLCs, HIL testbeds, automated DAQ & historian tools
I’ve personally built hardware and led teams whose work has been featured in Vast’s public media updates and engineering milestones.
Current Focus
I have returned to an individual contributor role exploring future-facing ECLSS technologies, with emphasis on:
- Closing the loop on water reclamation
- Long-duration habitation autonomy
- Reducing logistics dependency for orbital stations
Publication
I co-authored and executed testing for:
📄 ECLSS Trace Contaminant Control Testing — ICES-2025-465
(Presented at the 2025 International Conference on Environmental Systems)
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