Inside the LIFE Sierra Space inflatable space station

Inflatable space station? It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Colorado-based Sierra Space plans to replace the International Space Station (ISS) when it retires at the end of the decade with a series of inflatable living quarters that will allow scientists, artists and others to live and work for weeks at a time.

For its first venture, Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser, the world’s first winged commercial space plane, is targeting a September launch to ferry cargo to the ISS as part of the company’s $3 billion contract with NASA.

Sierra’s second venture will be an inflatable space biotope called LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment). The first station measures 27 feet in diameter and rises to the equivalent of a three-story building.

Robb’s messageA recent visit to the airline’s headquarters and research facility in Louisville, Colorado included an exclusive tour of its inflatable space. The full-scale prototype is designed to launch into space inside a conventional rocket and then expand into spherical living quarters in orbit.

“It might feel claustrophobic walking around now, but when you’re floating it’s very spacious,” says Sierra Space Chief Safety Officer Angie Wise. Above her is an upside-down hammock attached to the ceiling – “Astronauts must strap themselves in or they’ll float” – and next to it a copy of a sci-fi thriller The Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir (who also wrote Martian)nestled in its own perch as a makeshift bedside table.

It’s here that the next generation of astronauts and scientists will conduct research in microgravity, the ideal climate for developing technology from 3D-printed human organs to battery chemistry that can increase the range of today’s electric vehicles tenfold, says Sierra Space CEO. Tom Vice.

“I think we’re going to be able to disrupt any industrial society,” says Vice, standing in the middle of a glass observation room overlooking the Sierra Space mission control center. Vice and about a dozen of the company’s flight controllers plan to oversee Dream Chaser’s first space flight on the back of a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida.

Dream Chaser will first carry cargo between Earth and the ISS. But the company says the spaceplane will eventually carry people like astronauts, scientists and researchers into low Earth orbit — about 250 miles from Earth, where the ISS now lives — and host them aboard its LIFE habitat, a floating platform designed to , to allow people to live and work comfortably for weeks at a time in and out of low Earth orbit.

Wise takes us inside a house-sized, doughnut-shaped prototype that towers over the factory floor at Sierra Space’s headquarters. The structure’s outer shell resembles something between a yurt and a hot-air balloon, and is made of a high-strength matrix of “softgoods” materials that become rigid under pressure.

Fully inflated, it measures a third of the volume of the ISS, but Sierra Space is developing even larger LIFE modules. For example, its LIFE 5000 expands to five thousand cubic meters (about 177,000 cubic feet) in orbit, more than the entire space station– at a single launch. The company is also working with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to launch the first-ever commercial space station, a “mixed-use business park” called Orbital Reef that it hopes will open by 2030. The plan is for future versions of LIFE to house a hotel, restaurant and laboratories where researchers can experiment in microgravity.

This factory hall prototype seats four to six people and has plenty of space for research labs and exercise equipment. The “top” floor will host a vegetable garden that will provide crew members with a steady supply of fresh produce when they want to take a break from freeze-dried meals. “It’s a lot of work to get fresh food into space,” says Wise. “If we want to eventually get to Mars, we have to learn how to grow food.”

The thick matrix of materials surrounding the dome is designed to withstand impact from micrometeoroids and orbital debris, as well as protect the astronauts from internal pressure and cosmic radiation. Its dominant material is Vectran, a chemically woven fiber that, when inflated in orbit and used in NASA spacesuits, is five times stronger than steel. The soft material can repel impact from meteors and other space debris better than titanium or Kevlar, like a “bulletproof space vest,” Wise says.

Using a woven pattern that connects nine layers of textiles, the matrix is ​​robust enough to withstand a meteor shower, but versatile enough for the astronauts on board to repair holes in the surface by 3D printing a patch of material.

To evaluate its durability, the prototype underwent several “blast tests” at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where it was inflated to determine how much internal pressure it could withstand before exploding. In its most recent test, the full-scale prototype exceeded NASA-recommended safety levels, withstanding up to five times ambient pressure.

This latest tear test included a metal window substructure – or blind – as a stand-in for the window, an architectural feature particularly important for longer journeys. The plate also serves to create a fixed point in the soft structure used for mounting robotic arms, antennas, and other equipment. Wise says, “Astronauts love windows because what’s the point of being up there if you can’t see out?”

On the other side of the prototype manufacturing hall of the LIFE site, engineers are working on the construction of the second Dream Chaser space plane, called Reverence. Sierra doesn’t want to release many details, but says it’s being developed for missions to the ISS, among other potential applications.

The first Dream Chaser space plane – named Tenacity – has been delivered to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it awaits its inaugural launch. Its sleek, white and slightly avian silhouette measures 30 feet in length with wings that fold at launch, allowing the spaceplane to fit inside a conventional rocket enclosure. Tenacity’s compact body and 24-foot wingspan that deploys in orbit enable a key breakthrough: the ability to land horizontally on any commercial runway that can accommodate a Boeing 747 or Airbus A380.

When equipped with Sierra Space’s 15-foot Shooting Star module, Dream Chaser can deliver up to 12,000 pounds of food, water and supplies to the ISS. The module is designed to burn up on reentry, creating an opportunity to dispose of up to 8,500 pounds of waste from the space station after each mission.

Tenacity’s first flight will mark a major milestone in Sierra Space’s mission to become the largest real estate developer in space, providing transportation and destination, as well as the commercial economy that will drive the Orbital Age—allowing people to live and work in space permanently. Supplying the ISS is just the first step in Sierra’s aspirations to take the Dream Chaser beyond low Earth orbit, to the Moon and eventually to deep space.

The company plans to develop a crewed version of the Dream Chaser that can bring both astronauts and cargo to the ISS.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Sierra Space has signed agreements to begin development of a global network of landing sites that includes the Space Shuttle Runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Huntsville Airport in Alabama, and Spaceport America in New Mexico, as well as a facility in Oita. , Japan and Cornwall, England. The long-term goal is to land on commercial runways at airports around the world, allowing the Dream Chaser to deliver supplies or people to various locations on Earth faster than conventional aircraft.

“We want to work with companies that want to find answers to the world’s toughest problems,” Vice says. “This includes biotech companies thinking about next-generation drugs for oncology or longevity, and semiconductor companies trying to come up with a new chip that reduces energy consumption.”