To the moon will launch private inflatable habitation module
The company Bigelow Aerospace in cooperation with United Launch Alliance (ULA) plans to launch an inflatable module for lunar orbit.
Residential unit B330 will be delivered to the satellite using the launch Vulcan 562 by 2022. About it reported in a press release on the website ULA.
A private American company Bigelow Aerospace is developing inflatable space modules, the main advantage of which — the dimensions can be modified:
to send such a module is in the folded state and then inflated, increasing the size twice.
So, two units of the company, Genesis I and Genesis II, was launched to earth orbit in 2006 and 2007, respectively, and an inflatable habitation module Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is now used on the ISS. Now Bigelow Aerospace in partnership with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) plans to launch residential inflatable module in orbit around the moon.
At the moment, Bigelow Aerospace is developing inflatable two residential modules of the model B330. About the model so far we know little: the website Engadget reports that the new module will be three times smaller than the BEAM. In addition, the engineers plan to equip the module system for docking with the ISS and others in the same module. B330 launch a missile Vulcan 562, which is currently being developed by ULA: its construction planned to be completed by 2019. The company plans an initial launch of the residential module into orbit to verify it is working.