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SALT LAKE CITY — In an effort to make space travel more affordable and efficient, NASA has teamed up with a private company to build and launch an inflatable room that could be used to house astronauts in the future.
Wednesday, NASA discussed the details of their deal with Bigelow Aerospace in which they will acquire a 13-by-10-foot, 3,000 pound cylindrical inflatable room for the International Space Station.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, another partnership with a private company and NASA, will launch the $17.8 million module. Once at the space station, a robotic arm will attach and inflate the module.
"This partnership agreement for the use of expandable habitats represents a step forward in cutting-edge technology that can allow humans to thrive in space safely and affordably, and heralds important progress in U.S. commercial space innovation," said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver in a statement.
The module is expected to launch in 2015, after which it will remain with the space station for up to two years. During that time, astronauts will test the habitability of the module, including how it holds up against micrometeorites and if it adequately blocks radiation.
The idea of the inflatable habitat is not new, and has a long history with NASA. They first developed the concept in 1959, then revisited the idea in the ‘90s for TransHab. After funding stopped, NASA licensed the idea to Robert Bigelow, a real estate mogul who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain and began working in aerospace technologies in 2000.
Bigelow has already launched two inflatable 12,000-cubic-foot satellites successfully. Genesis I and II were launched in 2006 and 2007, respectively, by repurposed Russian ballistic missiles.
The module's walls are made of ultra-strong Vetran and Kevlar. The materials will provide a space with less acoustical interference than the station, since they will not be made out metal.
The lightweight modules weigh less than a third of traditional modules. Since they are launched deflated, they also solve the logistical problems of getting them to space in the limited area an "aluminum can" rocket offers.
