ISS Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM)

BEAM before inflation - credit:NASA

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be berthed to the Tranquility Node of the International Space Station for a two-year demonstration. It will be the first private space habitat of its kind. Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

Description:

• BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) is a technology demonstration for the inflatable space station structure as a prototype of the larger modules and stations planned by Bigelow Aerospace.
• The BEAM, which will weigh approximately 1,360 kg, will travel within the unpressurized cargo hold of the Dragon CRS-8 capsule. After the Dragon has docked with the Station, the Canadarm-2 will remove the BEAM from the capsule trunk and connect it to the aft port of Node 3 (Tranquility).
  BEAM is composed of two metal bulkheads, an aluminum structure, and multiple layers of soft fabric with spacing between layers, protecting an internal restraint and bladder system. It has no windows and no internal power. At the end of May 2016, the module will be expanded to nearly five times its compressed size of 7 feet (2.13 meters) in diameter by 8 feet (2.44 meters) in length to roughly 10 feet (3.05 meters) in diameter and 13 feet (3.96 meters) in length. It's internal dimensions provide 16 m3 (565 cubic feet). The mass of BEAM is 1,360 kg (3,000 lb). The interior pressure will be 15 pounds per square inch (1.0 atm), the same pressure inside the ISS.
  Upon successfully transferring and docking the BEAM to Node 3, an ISS astronaut will activate the deployment sequence. Subsequent completion of this deployment process, an ISS mew member will enter the BEAM, becoming the first astronaut to step inside an expandable habitat system.
• SpaceX′s fourth Dragon flight of the year (CRS-8) is scheduled to launch on 02 September 2015 with Falcon-9v1.1 and arrive at the station two days later, bringing the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) for robotic installation on the aft CBM of the Tranquility node. As noted in a recent article by AmericaSpace’s Talia Landman, the BEAM will remain affixed to the ISS for two years, providing 565 cubic feet (15.9 cubic meters) of pressurized volume, although it will only be accessed periodically by the crew, in order to conduct routine inspections and the collection of data.
• Tested with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

Mission details:

• Dragon CRS-8 was launched on Falcon 9 F9-023 from Cape Canaveral on Apr 8, 2016 at 20:43 UT. It carries science research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory in support of the Expedition 47 and 48 crews. The new experiments arriving to the station will help investigators study muscle atrophy and bone loss in space, use microgravity to seek insight into the interactions of particle flows at the nanoscale level and use protein crystal growth in microgravity to help in the design of new drugs to fight disease.
  The flight also includes the Bigelow Aerospace expandable habitat module (BEAM) that will be attached to the space station for testing. In its scheduled return to Earth in May 2016, the Dragon capsule will bring back biological samples from astronauts, including those collected during the 11-month-mission of an US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut ("one-year mission").
  The spacecraft arrived at the capture point 10m from the Harmony module at 11:15 UTC Apr 10, 2016 at which time Jeffrey Williams and Timothy Peake used the station's robotic arm Canadarm-2 to capture the Dragon spacecraft at 11:23 UTC. Ground commands were sent from Houston to the station's arm to install Dragon on the bottom side of the Harmony nadir CBM port at 1357 UTC. At about 0600 UTC on Apr 16 the BEAM module was extracted from Dragon's trunk; BEAM was installed on the Tranquility module's aft port at 0937 UTC Apr 16.
• Mission control halted the expansion of Bigelow Aerospace's experimental space station module on May 26, 2016 after the structure did not grow as predicted when air began flowing into it. Working in the International Space Station's Tranquility module, astronaut Jeffrey Williams opened a valve to allow the lab's air to gradually flow into the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. Responding to step-by-step commands from engineers in Houston, Jeffrey Williams cycled the valve several times for a few seconds, and a pressure monitor showed air was beginning to fill the Bigelow habitat. But cameras mounted outside the space station showed BEAM was not growing as quickly as anticipated, based on the amount of air vented inside. Flight controllers informed NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams that BEAM had only expanded a few inches in both length and diameter at the time the operation ceased for the day.
  In a second attempt on May 28, 2016 the module expansion was successfully carried out; the process of expanding and pressurizing the module took from 1305 to 2044 UTC (it needed seven hours, planned was one hour). The diameter of the module is now 3.2 metres; its length was increased by 1.8m to about 3.7m.
  
  

  BEAM expanded

  Williams enters BEAM

  
  
  
  

  NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik looks through the hatch of the module BEAM on july 31, 2017 before entering

  
  

External links:

• Americaspace.com: Research and development Information