An expandable space module headed to the International Space Station (ISS) on April 8 could help both NASA and the commercial space industry test technologies and capabilities for life after ISS, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is an experimental program developed under a NASA contract in an effort to test and validate expandable habitat technology. NASA will leverage ISS to test this technology for a two-year demonstration period, the company said on its website.
“If BEAM works out the way we hope, it will give (company founder and President Robert Bigelow) confidence that (he) can take this module, not have to be on ISS and can take it as a free flyer,” Bolden said Tuesday during a Space Transportation Association (STA) event on Capitol Hill.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) will deliver BEAM to ISS as part of its Commercial Resupply Services-8 (CRS-8) mission. Launch will take place from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a Falcon 9.
BEAM mission objectives on ISS include increasing the technology readiness level (TRL) of expandable habitat technology, demonstrating launch and deployment as well as folding and packing techniques. Bigelow also wants to determine radiation protection capability, and demonstrate design performance such as thermal, structural, mechanical, durability and long-term leak performance.
The United States is committed to ISS through 2024 and Bolden said the station’s engineering life ends at 2028. He said Russia, partners on ISS, told him last week that it has three more space vehicles that it wants to produce that will be sent to be part of ISS. Bolden said Russia’s space modules are being built so that when ISS ends, the modules can be disconnected and reassembled as its own space station in low earth orbit (LEO). The United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada are all ISS partners.
Bolden does not envision a government owned and operated space station succeeding ISS. The idea is that NASA will focus on getting to Mars and cislunar space, or the region around the moon, leaving it to industry to develop LEO. Bolden imagines NASA contracting from a commercial space station facility like companies now do on ISS: identifying a need and paying an operating cost.
Commercial space advocate and industry consultant Rand Simberg said Tuesday Bigelow is waiting for Commercial Crew, NASA’s program to get humans to ISS, to develop so the company has a way to get people to and from LEO. Simberg said if Bigelow succeeds in getting multiple expandable habitats into space, a market could develop for interorbital transportation, or getting people from one habitat to another in the same orbit. Simberg added that additional habitats in space might not be limited to research facilities, they could include tourist hotels.
Simberg said while NASA has set certain milestones for its participation in ISS, nobody truly knows the lifetime of ISS. The United States, he said, doesn’t know to which degree ISS can really be refurbished and have its life extended. Simberg said it will come down to how much is the U.S. willing to spend and will it be worth to replace various parts. He also predicted political questions like if the Russians wanted their wing of ISS back.
“It is just too early to really be planning or speculative about this,” Simberg said.