The next generation of orbital outposts is being designed to skip the painstaking, decade‑long construction that defined the International Space Station and instead ride to orbit in a single shot. Rather than bolting together dozens of pieces in space, companies are betting on giant, self‑deploying modules that can unfold into full‑size laboratories and habitats after launch. If they work as advertised, these one‑launch stations could reset the economics of living and working in orbit just as the ISS nears retirement.
From impossible in one piece to built for one launch
For most of the space age, engineers treated the idea of lofting an entire orbital complex at once as fantasy, because no rocket could lift something as massive and sprawling as the International Space Station. European planners noted that it would have been impossible to build the Space Station on Earth and launch it in one go, since there was no booster capable of hauling the assembled structure to an orbit about 400 km above the Earth’s surface, so the ISS had to be assembled piece by piece in orbit instead, with more than thirty shuttle and cargo flights spread over years to complete the job, according to the Space Station program history. That modular approach worked, but it locked human spaceflight into a model where every new station meant a long, expensive construction campaign in orbit.
Today, heavy‑lift rockets and new materials are flipping that logic, and designers are starting from the premise that a station should be compact enough for a single ascent, then expand or reconfigure itself once it reaches low Earth orbit. The shift is not just about convenience, it is about cost and risk, because every extra launch adds another chance for failure and another line item on the budget, so a one‑piece station that can be launched in one mission promises fewer moving parts in both senses. I see this as a direct response to the lessons of the ISS era, when the need to assemble the Space Station in orbit around Earth and manage dozens of dockings became a constraint as much as an achievement, and it is shaping how commercial players pitch their replacements.
Max Space’s Thunderbird and the inflatable station race
One of the most aggressive examples of the one‑launch philosophy is Max Space, which is developing a station concept called Thunderbird that is designed to ride to orbit as a compact payload and then inflate into a much larger volume. The company has described a prototype of Max Space’s Thunderbird that could be deployed as early as the late 2020s and has emphasized that the structure is meant to be launched on a single mission, with the research methods centered on a prototype that can validate the deployment sequence and internal layout in orbit, according to reporting on the Proposed Space Station Could Be Deployed concept. By relying on inflatable walls and internal trusses, Thunderbird aims to pack a station‑scale habitat into a fairing that would otherwise only fit a single rigid module.
Max Space is also positioning Thunderbird as a contender to take over some of the roles of the ISS once that complex is retired, and its designers have highlighted that the station would orbit Earth with shape‑shifting rooms that can be reconfigured for different missions. Coverage of the project notes that this is not the only special move that sets it apart from rivals vying to orbit Earth once the ISS retires at the end of its life, since the interior is meant to morph between lab space, crew quarters, and storage as needed, a flexibility that could appeal to both national agencies and private customers, according to a profile that described how the design could replace the ISS and referenced its roots in earlier flights starting back in 1998 on Earth. In my view, that combination of single‑launch deployment and modular interior design is what makes Thunderbird emblematic of the new station race.
Haven‑1 proves private stations are no longer hypothetical
While Thunderbird is still on the drawing board, another project has already shown that private stations are moving from concept art to hardware, and that is Haven‑1 from the company Vast. Earlier this year, Vast reported that it had passed a critical Haven‑1 test milestone and that, building on that success, it began manufacturing its flight‑ready primary structure in January 2025, keeping the program on track for a first crewed mission after launch, according to an update that detailed how the team is refining the schedule in its Feb briefing. That kind of progress report is the sort of thing we used to see only from national agencies, and it underlines how quickly commercial players are learning to build and test orbital habitats.
Vast describes Haven‑1 as the world’s first commercial space station and has laid out a manufacturing and testing process that includes pressure vessel checks, life support integration, and mission planning for four crew members at a time. The company invites customers to see the Haven manufacturing and testing process and to create your mission, signaling that it wants to sell dedicated flights to research groups and private explorers rather than just rent out a rack or two, and its mission overview emphasizes that Haven‑1 missions will support Four crew members in a compact but fully independent module, according to the station description on See the project page. I read that as a proof of concept for a future in which multiple small, self‑contained stations share orbit instead of a single monolithic complex.
Haven‑1’s world record and what it signals
The significance of Haven‑1 is not just technical, it is symbolic, because it has already been recognized as a world record in its own right. The World Record Academy has listed the World’s First Private Space Station, Haven‑1, as setting a world record and has identified the Company Vast as the operator, with the entry noting that Haven‑1 launched on May 20 and that this milestone marks the First Private Space Station to reach orbit as a standalone commercial outpost, according to the World record citation. That recognition matters because it draws a line between earlier commercial modules that were attached to government stations and a new generation of fully private platforms.
By framing Haven‑1 as the First Private Space Station, the record also underscores how quickly the market is diversifying, with one company already operating a dedicated habitat while others race to follow. I see this as a signal that the era of relying solely on government‑run complexes is ending, and that future astronauts, tourists, and researchers may have a menu of stations to choose from, each optimized for different missions. In that context, the fact that Haven‑1 is a compact, single‑module platform rather than a sprawling complex suggests that the one‑launch model is not just a technical curiosity but a viable commercial strategy for companies like Vast that want to move fast and keep costs under control.
Starlab: a single‑module station backed by NASA and ESA
If Haven‑1 is the first step, Starlab is the flagship of the next wave, a larger single‑module station that aims to serve as a major research hub in low Earth orbit. Starlab is described as a low Earth orbit commercial space station currently under development by Starlab Spa, and the project is being built as a partnership that includes both NASA and the ESA, which see it as one of the successors to the ISS in LEO, according to the program overview for Starlab. The design centers on a single, three‑floor module that can be launched intact, then serve as a laboratory, habitat, and docking hub without needing additional pressurized sections to be added later.
NASA has folded Starlab into its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program and has highlighted that the station is being engineered to reach orbit on a single flight, a key requirement for keeping costs predictable and schedules tight. In its updates on the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, the agency has pointed to Starlab as an example of how commercial partners can build a station that is large enough to support serious research yet compact enough to ride to orbit in one piece, and it has emphasized that the architecture is meant to reduce the complexity that plagued earlier multi‑launch projects, according to a briefing on Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program progress. From my perspective, that endorsement shows that single‑launch stations are not just a startup dream but a core part of NASA’s post‑ISS strategy.
How Starlab plans to reach orbit in one shot
To make the one‑launch vision real, Starlab is leaning on the lifting power of SpaceX’s Starship and on a design that packs as much usable volume as possible into a single pressurized shell. Project leaders have said that the private Starlab space station is moving into full‑scale development ahead of a planned launch in 2028 aboard SpaceX’s Starship megarocket, a timeline that reflects confidence in both the station hardware and the heavy‑lift vehicle that will carry it, according to a report that described how the team is preparing for that Mar milestone. By committing to a single Starship launch, Starlab’s backers are effectively betting that the economics of one big flight will beat the traditional pattern of many smaller ones.
Independent analyses of the commercial station landscape have noted that, unlike its CLD competitors, Starlab is a single‑module station that can be launched all at once, and that as of March 2025, Starlab was already securing customers and planning for additional Starlabs if demand exists. That same assessment pointed out that the CLD field includes multi‑module concepts that will need several launches to reach full capability, which makes Starlab’s one‑piece approach stand out as a way to simplify operations and scale later by adding more identical stations rather than bolting on new segments, according to a survey of where America’s commercial space stations stand that highlighted how, unlike other CLD designs, Unlike CLD competitors, Starlab can be launched in one go. I see that modular‑at‑the‑fleet‑level strategy as a clever twist on the old modular‑in‑orbit mindset.
Inside Starlab’s three‑floor lab and its crowded manifest
Beyond the launch strategy, what makes Starlab notable is how much capability its designers are squeezing into a single structure, and how quickly that capacity is being spoken for. Aerospace executives have said that the single‑module, three‑floor Starlab is set to launch in 2029 to low‑Earth orbit onboard a Starship heavy‑lift launch vehicle, and that more than half the research space on the station has already been claimed by customers, with the company expecting to sign additional users before the end of 2025, according to a detailed look at how the Nov manifest is filling up. That level of pre‑booking suggests that researchers and companies are comfortable betting on a station that does not yet exist in orbit but promises a turnkey lab environment once it arrives.
NASA has echoed that optimism by highlighting key progress on the Starlab commercial space station and by stressing that the project is a central pillar of its plan to maintain a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit after the ISS. In its updates, the agency has framed Starlab as a way to keep experiments running in LEO while shifting more of the financial and operational burden to private partners, and it has pointed to the station’s three‑floor layout as a way to separate microgravity research, crew living space, and commercial activities within a single module, according to its Starlab briefings. From my vantage point, the fact that more than half the lab space is already reserved years before launch is a strong vote of confidence in the one‑launch model.
Why single‑launch stations could change the economics of orbit
Underneath the technical details, the appeal of single‑launch stations comes down to a simple equation: fewer launches mean fewer chances for something to go wrong and fewer invoices to pay. Engineers discussing the idea have argued that, compared to a module completely built on Earth and launched in a single piece, an inflatable or otherwise compactable station that can be lifted by one single heavy rocket is absolutely a better approach for certain missions, because it allows a much larger habitable volume to ride on the same booster and reduces the need for complex on‑orbit assembly, according to a technical discussion that framed the concept as a space station that can be lifted by one heavy launcher and noted that, compared to building the whole thing on Earth and launching it rigid, the inflatable approach is Absolutely more efficient. I see that argument reflected in how companies like Max Space and Vast talk about their designs, which are all about maximizing volume per launch.
At the same time, the history of the ISS is a reminder that some missions will still need multi‑launch assembly, especially if they require redundancy, massive power systems, or international contributions that arrive over time. The European account of how it would have been impossible to build the Space Station on Earth and launch it in one go, because no rocket could lift the assembled structure to orbit around Earth and because partners needed to deliver their own modules, shows that politics and program structure can be just as important as physics in determining how a station is built, as the Earth and station history makes clear. In my judgment, the future is likely to be a mix, with compact, one‑shot stations handling many commercial and national needs, while any truly giant outposts that follow the ISS might still require a return to orbital construction.
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