Astronauts enter world’s first inflatable space lodge

Assuming that all goes well over the two-year test, similar and more elaborate space houses (as you can see from the picture, the inside of BEAM is now pretty Spartan) may one day be deployed to the ISS and even further into space.

Activities aboard the International Space Station during the first week in June included continued operations with the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) – which was fully expanded on May 28. Jeff Williams also noticed that there is no condensation inside BEAM in spite of fact that temperature inside module was at 6ºC what is significantly lower than inside ISS. Having completed their tasks, Williams resealed the module as a safety precaution.

Astronauts will return to BEAM on Tuesday and Wednesday to install temperature and radiation sensors as well as instruments to collect data from any micro-meteoroid or orbital debris impacts.

BEAM will be sticking around for a while too, the module has a planned life on the ISS of two years. Between each ingress, the hatch of the module will remain closed. BEAM now measures more than 13 feet long and about 10.5 feet in diameter to create 565 cubic feet of habitable volume.

“Over the next two days they have a few more … opportunities to enter BEAM and to deploy other sensors and equipment inside”, the NASA representative said.

Expandable habitats are not necessarily lighter than a comparable rigid structure of a similar size. Each time, the hatch will be closed and sealed. During the two-year deployment, it will collect data from space. The module was built to remain compact on a launch and then expand in the space to give more interior room for the astronauts, allowing them to move around. It was delivered to space aboard the SpaceX cargo space shuttle.

Indeed, the inflatable module by Bigelow Aerospace, if proven strong and effective, will change the way astronauts live in space. The main appeal of these modules are the fact they save space during launch and can fit into limited payload fairing sizes.