CSS Skywalker: Bigelow Aerospace space station concept. Inflatable Bigelow Module To Fly to Space Station in 2015. LAS VEGAS — NASA is stepping up its commitment to commercial space projects with a first-of-its-kind agreement to buy a Bigelow Aerospace expandable habitat and attach it to the international space station (ISS) for a two-year test flight.
Privately owned Bigelow Aerospace, based in Las Vegas and operated by entrepreneur and hotelier Robert Bigelow, hopes to parlay the fixed-price, $17.8 million NASA contract into future work providing similar balloon-like structures for human missions to asteroids, the Moon and other destinations beyond low Earth orbit. “When you talk about beyond low Earth orbit, long-duration exploration, you need large volumes to be able to conduct these missions, and yet you still have the challenges of limited space aboard rockets and limited mass.
Expandable habitats deliver on both fronts,” said Bigelow Aerospace operations director Mike Gold. Bigelow's Second Orbital Module Launches Into Space. This story was updated at 8:08 p.m.
EDT. A privately-built space station prototype successfully launched into orbit Thursday from a Russian missile base, kicking off the second test flight for the U.S. firm Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow Aerospace.