Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Expandable room installed on space station

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: April 16, 2016 at 2:45:59 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Expandable room installed on space station

Expandable room installed on space station
April 16, 2016 Stephen Clark
Updated after BEAM installation.
Credit: NASA/Tim Kopra
The International Space Station's robotic arm, under the control of engineers on Earth, extracted an experimental inflatable habitat from the trunk of SpaceX's Dragon supply ship Saturday and attached it to the orbiting complex.
Made by Bigelow Aerospace, the new module will spend two years on the space station to prove the novel design's worthiness for future commercial orbiting research labs and expeditions to deep space.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, flew to the space station inside a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft last week. The flight was arranged between Bigelow and NASA, which is paying the Las Vegas-based company $17.8 million for the project.
Unlike the space station's other modules, which are made of metal alloys, BEAM is made of reinforced fabric designed to be resistant to radiation and bombardment by tiny flecks of space junk and micrometeoroids.
One of the BEAM project's objectives is to verify the inflatable module concept can withstand the rigors of spaceflight.
Engineers sent commands to unlatch BEAM from its mooring inside Dragon's unpressurized trunk early Saturday, and the 58-foot robot arm, nicknamed Canadarm 2, removed the 3,115-pound (1,413-kilogram) module from the SpaceX supply ship around 2:15 a.m. EDT (0615 GMT).
The robotic arm maneuvered BEAM, which measures about about 5.7 feet (1.7 meters) long and nearly 7.8 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter in its stowed configuration, to a berthing port on the aft side of the the space station's Tranquility module.
Berthing was complete at 5:36 a.m. EDT (0936 GMT), according to NASA spokesperson Dan Huot.
The module will be inflated around May 26, expanding to four times its current volume until it reaches the approximate dimensions of a family-sized tent. Space station managers want to wait to inflate BEAM until the research complex and its crew are in a quiet period without arriving or departing spacecraft.
Artist's concept of BEAM berthed to the International Space Station after its expansion. Credit: Bigelow Aerospace
Bigelow Aerospace intends to launch a module 20 times bigger to low Earth orbit in 2020 to form the centerpiece of a commercial human-tended space station for tourists and researchers to visit.
The habitat is made of a Vectran-like material, according to Lisa Kauke, BEAM's deputy program manager at Bigelow Aerospace. NASA used similar materials in the airbags that cushioned the landings of NASA's Mars Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
After the module is inflated, astronauts will enter the habitat to install sensors to monitor conditions inside the module, tracking temperatures, radiation levels, and impacts from tiny micrometeoroids and space junk, according to Rajib Dasgupta, technical integration manager for the BEAM demonstration at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The inflation dynamics are an unknown, officials said.
Sensors mounted on both sides of the module's interface with the space station will measure how the deployment works.
"This type of architecture has never been flown before," Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, said before last week's launch of BEAM. "It has been bound up for over a year waiting for launch. We're not 100 percent sure of its behavior. It is a testing station. That is the whole point here, in all respects."
Bigelow Aerospace launched two small inflatable satellites in 2006 and 2007. Those missions, dubbed Genesis 1 and 2, performed beyond expectations, Kauke said.
"What we learned from both of those programs is that the technology works, and we proved our materials and our assembly processes," Kauke said.
NASA and Bigelow are now demonstrating expandable module technologies for human spaceflight.
Inflatable structures have several benefits, chiefly the ability to launch modules inside the constrained size of existing rocket fairings. They are also lighter than conventional metallic modules.
Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of NASA's human exploration and operations directorate, said last month that the space agency is eager to see the results of the BEAM demonstration.
"Does it meet all the things that it's purported to meet? It's supposed to have better micrometeoroid and debris protection, better thermal protection, better acoustics, and we'll see if it has those," Gerstenmaier said. "We'll also understand how to use a fairly large volume, which we have not had experience with."

© 2016 Spaceflight Now Inc.

'BEAM' Aboard: Experimental Inflatable Room Attached to Space Station
By Robert Pearlman, Space.com Contributor | April 16, 2016 08:31am ET
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, an inflatable space room built by Bigelow Aerospace, is moved by robotic arm to its new home on the International Space Station on April 16, 2016 in this exterior camera view. BEAM is a prototype for future space habitats.
Credit: NASA TV
The International Space Station gained a brand new room on Saturday (April 16), but it will be another month before it grows large enough for the astronauts to enter.
A first-of-its-type inflatable structure, the BEAM — or Bigelow Expandable Activity Module — built by Bigelow Aerospace, was attached to the rear-facing port of the space station's Tranquility node. It is the first new addition to the orbiting outpost in five years.
Launched inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule on April 8, the BEAM arrived at the space station two days later. [An Inflatable Space Room: The BEAM Module in Pictures]
Early Saturday, flight controllers at NASA's Mission Control in Houston began sending commands to the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to extract the deflated, compressed BEAM from the Dragon and move it into position next to its attach point on the Tranquility module.
Bigelow Aerospace's BEAM expandable module will enhance the living area of the International Space Station. See how the BEAM module works in our full infographic.
Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com contributor
Astronauts Tim Kopra and Jeff Williams then secured the BEAM from on board the station using the complex's common berthing mechanism controls. By 6:12 a.m. EDT (1012 GMT), the space station had its first privately built room.
"We're about to have another module on @Space_Station," NASA astronaut Tim Kopra wrote on Twitter during the move. "Arm attaching inflatable module #BEAM to the Node 3 aft port."
BEAM, which was compacted for its launch to a size of just 7 feet (2.1 meters) in diameter and 8 feet (2.4 m) in length, will be expanded to nearly five times its size at the end of May. The space station's air supply will be used to inflate the new room to its fully-formed shape and then the BEAM's own air tanks will pressurize the module on or around May 26.
The station's crew is expected to first enter the experimental habitat about a week later and, during the BEAM's test mission through 2018, will return to the module for a few hours several times a year to retrieve sensor data and assess its conditions. [How Bigelow Aerospace's BEAM Space Room Works (Infographic)]
"We want to understand the structural integrity, the radiation performance of [the BEAM] and the temperature controls in order to help inform our choices for deep space habitats," said Jason Crusan, director of NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems Division, in a press conference prior to the module's launch.
Robert Bigelow, the president of Bigelow Aerospace and owner of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, said that BEAM might also eventually be used to support commercial projects.
The BEAM has left the Dragon pic.twitter.com/3bhWEjOYSC
— Bigelow Aerospace (@BigelowSpace) April 16, 2016
BEAM is made of multiple layers of a proprietary, Vectran-like soft material. Once expanded and pressurized, the habitat will be as tough as the more traditional solid body modules that form the space station's other rooms.
Once the two-year test period is over, BEAM will be jettisoned from the space station to burn up during its descent through Earth's atmosphere.
Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance (ULA) recently announced a new partnership to develop a much larger expandable space habitat as a follow-on to BEAM. It is slated to launch it in 2020 on board a ULA Atlas V rocket.
The future expandable module, which will feature an internal volume of 12,000 cubic feet (330 cubic meters), or about 30 percent of the International Space Station's volume, will be capable of being a self-sufficient orbiting outpost, but might first be attached to the station, similar to how BEAM was on Saturday.
An artist's illustration of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), built by Bigelow Aerospace, inflated and attached to the International Space Station.
Credit: Bigelow Aerospace
"We are exploring options for the location of the initial B330, including discussions with NASA on the possibility of attaching it to the International Space Station," said Bigelow in a statement. "The working name for this module is XBASE or Expandable Bigelow Advanced Station Enhancement."
Robert Pearlman is a contributing writer and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner site and the leading space history news publication.
© 1999-2016 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved.

By William Harwood CBS News April 16, 2016, 7:23 AM
Expandable crew module attached to space station
Flight controllers remotely operating the International Space Station's robot arm pulled an experimental expandable crew compartment out of the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon supply ship early Saturday and moved it into place for attachment to the lab's Tranquility module for two years of tests.
When the still-collapsed 3,100-pound Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, was properly aligned with Tranquility's aft-facing port, motorized bolts in the common berthing mechanism drove home to lock it firmly in place at 5:36 a.m. EDT (GMT-4).
The module will remain compressed, measuring about 8 feet in diameter and 6 feet long, until May 27 when station air will be directed inside to begin the process of inflating it to full size. Internal air tanks then will be opened to complete the expansion, resulting in a bedroom-size compartment with about 565 cubic feet of volume measuring 10.5-feet wide by 13-feet long.
About one week later, Expedition 47 commander Timothy Kopra and his crewmates -- NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams, British astronaut Timothy Peake and cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka -- will be clear to open hatches and float inside for a brief inspection.
Over the next two years, a variety of sensors will monitor temperature, pressure and radiation levels to find out how well the module stands up to the space environment. The long-range goal is to assess the feasibility of using expandable compartments with future space stations or as crew habitats for eventual deep space missions.
"We're excited to attach another vehicle, essentially, onto space station," Kopra told a reporter earlier this week. "This is an example where the commercial space industry has really been innovative in their techniques. This will be a great way for us to test out both thermal characteristics of this new type of module and its radiation protection. It's going to be a neat thing to have on station."
But because BEAM represents untried technology making its first flight, the astronauts will leave the hatches closed except for brief visits every few months to collect sensor data.
"We're not going to use it routinely," Kopra said, "but we'll go in to add sensors and make sure everything is working properly."
If all goes well, the BEAM crew compartment will be inflated, or expanded, to its full size on May 27, as shown here in an artist's impression.
Bigelow Aerospace
Expandable modules offer two major advantages over traditional metallic compartments like those making up the space station's other modules: they take up less space aboard the rockets needed to launch them and they weigh much less than comparably-sized "solid" modules.
Robert Bigelow, founder of BEAM-builder Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, announced plans last week to launch a much larger module, known as the B330, around 2020 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. The B330 features 12,000 cubic feet of volume when fully expanded, more than a third of the space station's current volume.
Bigelow said two or more such modules, each equipped with life support systems, solar power systems, communications gear and propulsion, could be linked together to form a large commercial space station in low-Earth orbit. Such modules also could be used for eventual deep space missions to the moon or even Mars.
In the near term, Bigelow said he hopes NASA will consider attaching the first B330 to the International Space Station, although he provided no details as where the module might be attached, what impact it might have on station operations or what it might take to convince the space agency to take such a step.
But Bigelow said the B330 offers NASA a low-cost way to add a large volume to the station that could be used by government, academic and corporate researchers while field-testing the technology for deep space missions.
"Our hope is that NASA would be the primary customer for that structure, and that we would be given permission to commercialize," Bigelow said. "Essentially, we would be time sharing. We're offering discrete quantities of time, a matter of one or two weeks to maybe 45 days, to various kinds of clientele."
Assuming the technical and political issues can be resolved, Kopra said he's all for it.
"I think anytime we can bring up new modules to space station we're going to be excited about that," he said. "We have a big station here, but there's room to make it bigger. So if we could add additional modules to test out the future of space exploration and the way humans are going to interact and work with modules, I think it's a great idea."
© 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.