Vast Space, a company that emerged from stealth last September with the aim of building artificial gravity space stations in low Earth orbit, has acquired space tug startup Launcher, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
The acquisition, a first for Vast, will give the company access to Launcher’s Orbiter space tug and payload platform and its liquid rocket engine, E-2. Under the terms of the deal, Vast will also absorb all of Launcher’s talent, including Launcher founder Max Haot, who will join as President. The two companies told TechCrunch that the deal has been in the works for months, with both signing a Letter of Intent to acquire back in November.
The deal could be a big accelerator for Vast; the company’s founder, billionaire crypto pioneer Jed McCaleb, said Vast will use the Orbiter tug to test space station subsystems and components in orbit as soon as June of this year, and then again around October. Those two missio...
