News Archive / Tagged: Bigelow Aerospace

• Bigelow Aerospace spawns spinoff company to market its space stations

  Derek RichardsonFebruary 21st, 2018

  After more than a week of teasing, Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace announced the creation of a sister company called Bigelow Space Operations (BSO). Its mission is to "market and operate space stations developed by Bigelow Aerospace that are so capable, so diverse and so large that they can accommodate virtually unlimited use almost anywhere."

• Bigelow’s piece of ISS gets approval for extended stay

  Derek RichardsonDecember 7th, 2017

  The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) has been given the green light to stay attached to the aft portion of the International Space Station's Tranquility node for a further three years. The new contract began in November 2017, according to NASA. 

• ULA, Bigelow Aerospace set sights on lunar orbit outpost

  Bart LeahyOctober 19th, 2017

  United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Bigelow Aerospace are teaming up to send an inflatable space station to low-lunar orbit by 2022. The effort will feature a series of launches aboard ULA’s new Vulcan rocket using its Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES) to make Bigelow’s B330 habitat a depot to facilitate future exploration and development of the Moon.

• NASA to Bigelow: One BEAM to stay up?

  Curt GodwinOctober 6th, 2017

  More than halfway through its planned two-year demonstration mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Bigelow Aerospace's Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is performing so well that NASA is considering extending the habitat's stay at the orbiting outpost.

• BEAM returning ‘extremely valuable’ data about expandable habitats

  Larry KlaesNovember 29th, 2016

  Having been attached to the ISS for six months, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, better known as BEAM, is already providing data that could inform the design of future human-rated expandable space habitats. The module was launched April 8 by SpaceX's CRS-8 Dragon spacecraft and was attached to the station's Tranquility module and expanded in May.

• BEAM entered by International Space Station crew

  Derek RichardsonJune 6th, 2016

  About a week after expansion, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was entered by NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka at 4:47 a.m. EDT (08:47 GMT) on June 6.

• BEAM successfully expanded at International Space Station

  Derek RichardsonMay 28th, 2016

  The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was successfully expanded today, May 28, on board the International Space Station, two days after an attempt to inflate the module brought an unexpected pressure increase with little-to-no increase in size.

• After initial inflation, BEAM expansion put on hold

  Derek RichardsonMay 26th, 2016

  After preliminary inflation, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was expected to expand to its full volume today. However, because the expansion procedure was taking much longer than planned, the ground teams postponed the remaining process in order to determine the cause of the problem.

• Hab at it: NASA looking for space habitat concepts

  Jason RhianApril 27th, 2016

  NASA is looking for new habitat concepts. Of course, it pays if you're an aerospace firm with the resources to produce the habs needed for deep space destinations such as an asteroid or Mars.

• BEAM attached to the International Space Station

  Derek RichardsonApril 16th, 2016

  A first-of-its-kind module—Bigelow Aerospace's Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM)—was attached to the International Space Station (ISS) this morning after the robotic Canadarm2 removed it from the trunk of SpaceX’s CRS-8 Dragon cargo ship currently berthed to the orbiting lab.

• Bigelow Aerospace B330 space hab to get ride on ULA Atlas V 552 in 2020

  Eric ShearApril 12th, 2016

  The handover of space activities in LEO to commercial firms is accelerating at an ever-increasing pace. On Monday, April 11, 2016, Bigelow Aerospace and ULA announced that an Atlas V 552 rocket would be used to deploy an expandable habitat based on the BA-330 design – with that flight coming as soon as 2020.

• Bigelow Aerospace and ULA to announce new partnership

  Jim SharkeyApril 10th, 2016

  Space habitat manufacturer Bigelow Aerospace and launch provider ULA issued a release on Friday stating that the two companies would announce a new partnership on Monday, April 11, at 4 p.m. MDT, at the 32nd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs Colorado.

• SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft set to return to service on Friday

  Jason RhianApril 7th, 2016

  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — CRS-8 is a flight more than ten months in the making. Ever since a SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 exploded some 139 seconds into the CRS-7 mission for NASA, the question has been, when will the Dragon fly again? That answer could be April 8, at 4:43 p.m. EDT (20:23 GMT).

• The science of expansion: NASA highlights SpaceX CRS-8 experiments

  Jason RhianMarch 29th, 2016

  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA held a briefing on March 28 that gave an overview of the experiments set to fly in SpaceX's CRS-8 Dragon spacecraft. In terms of CRS-8, one item, in particular, has captured the public's imagination – BEAM.

• ‘BEAM me up SpaceX!’ Bigelow’s prototype habitat loaded onto CRS-8 Dragon

  Eric ShearMarch 26th, 2016

  Bigelow's BEAM module was loaded into the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon at KSC, in preparations for the CRS-8 flight from Cape Canaveral's SLC-40 on April 8, 2016. It will be the tenth flight for a Dragon cargo spacecraft and the eighth flight under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract with SpaceX.