REAL LIFE NEWS: INFLATABLE SPACE HABITAT INFLATES ON SECOND TRY
by Hazed
The inflatable habitat which has been attached to the International Space Station, which I told you about a few months ago, has now been successfully inflated, after a false start a week ago.
It took astronaut Jeff Williams seven hours to blow it up, by introducing air from the ISS into the BEAM structure in short bursts. Meanwhile, flight controllers carefully monitored the internal pressure of the module.
The first attempt to inflate the habitat failed because the fabric had been compressed for so long. As the Bigelow Aerospace project manager, Lisa Kauke, explained, “The BEAM spacecraft has been in a packed state for a significantly longer time than expected. It has undergone a tremendous squeeze for over 15 months, which is 10 months longer than planned. Therefore, there is a potential for the behaviour of the materials that make up the outside of the spacecraft to act differently than expected.”
So it just needed a little rest then it was ready to be blown up. Now it will undergo leak checks and if it passes them, Jeff Williams will enter the habitat in a few days’ time to examine it. He and his fellow astronauts will continue to go into the BEAM several times a year so that NASA and Bigelow can assess how it performs in the rigours of space.
If everything goes as planned, we will be one step closer to the realisation of a space hotel.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/beam_podule_inflated/
