There is a new room in the International Space Station, and it's an expandable one. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) inflated its very first expandable room on Saturday, an experimental habitat for astronauts.
The new room is called BEAM, short for Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. It is a round type of module which is attached to the space station.
"The module is fully expanded at this point and fully pressurized," said NASA spokesman Daniel Huot, as per NDTV. Astronaut Jeff Williams reportedly spent more than seven hours releasing short blasts of air using a manual valve into the module's walls.
NASA expanded an inflatable habitat in space for the first time. https://t.co/c6LlzD7SbDhttps://t.co/TS3khRsRJr
— Newsy (@NewsyVideos) May 30, 2016
Benefits Of An Expandable Room
NBC News reported that BEAM is foldable just like a parachute and when deflated, is nearly one-fifth its size when filled with air. This makes it easier for packing in space missions. When inflated, the BEAM is 13 feet long and 10.5 feet wide, with 565 cubic feet of living space available.
Unlike the usual rooms for space, which are made up of metal, expandable rooms like BEAM do not take up much area in cargoes being sent to space. It was noted that this makes the cost of sending expandable room to space lesser than their metallic and inflexible counterparts.
Expandable Room Faced Earlier Challenge
The BEAM will undergo one week of tests for possible leaks in the module before astronauts are allowed inside. The original schedule for inflating the BEAM was on Thursday, but there was a glitch.
CNN reported that fabric friction caused the glitch. BEAM is made up of fabric, which was compressed, likely due to being stored in the cargo longer than expected. The compression caused the BEAM's fabric to be rigid when it was first inflated.
It was said that NASA hopes to have astronauts on the BEAM three to four times a year and see how it is working in the face of solar radiation and the extreme temperature changes. The BEAM is scheduled to be in space for two years.
What do you think are the possibilities of expandable rooms in space? Write your comments below.
