Lots of space in space
Company, NASA unveil cylinder for lunar gateway mission
A gentle whirring sound fills the warehouse at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as an enormous, inflatable cylinder slowly begins to fill with air.
The more the cylinder expands, the more it looks like a giant bouncy house.
But if Sierra Nevada Corp. has it’s way, astronauts won’t be bouncing around the sphere’s interior under the influence of Earth’s gravity. They’ll be floating around it as the habitat orbits the moon.
“This is a busy time for exploration, where every pound going to orbit is critical,” John McCullough, director of Johnson’s Exploration Integration and Science Directorate, said at a Wednesday news conference. “Concepts like these are helping us define and enable new architects and new opportunities … for future activities onward to Mars.”
Sierra Nevada was one of five companies selected in January 2018 to make prototypes of astronaut living quarters for a planned moon-orbiting space station, known as the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway. The company opted to make the habitat inflatable so it could fit on a normal, heavy lift rocket but expand to provide astronauts as much space as possible.
The prototype unveiled Wednesday is huge — 27 feet in diameter and 27 feet long, giving astronauts about 300 cubic meters spread across three floors inside. That’s about a third of the size of the International Space Station.
“We saw this as an opportunity to get a lot more out there with the same amount of space,” said former astronaut Steve Lindsey, now vice president of Space Exploration Systems at Sierra Nevada.
But it’s not slated for space yet. In July, NASA awarded Northrop Grum
man the contract for the first habitat module for the gateway, which needs to be in place around the moon before the humans are sent there in 2024.
“We would have really liked chance to compete for that but it is what it is,” Lindsey said, adding that NASA will need larger habitat in the later years of the gateway.
Problem of space
The International Space Station is about the size of a five-bedroom home, but it was taken into space in pieces by various different space agencies.
These pieces are rigid and inflexible, one of the ways space agencies opted to protect humans from the harsh environment of space.
But Sierra Nevada decided to go a different way. Its habitat — made of vectron, the same fabric material used in bullet proof vests, to protect astronauts from space — can shrink down to about 13 feet in diameter.
That means it can fit into the payload fairing of any heavy lift rocket, such as NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy or United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. A payload fairing is the nose cone of a rocket and typically can hold something about 17.7 feet in diameter.
“One of the challenges of getting out to lunar orbit is you can only carry what you can fit inside, essentially, a payload fairing of a rocket,” said former astronaut Steve Lindsey, now vice president of Space Exploration Systems at Sierra Nevada. “The advantage of this is … you can get a huge amount of volume in a very tiny amount of space.”
The habitat then would be inflated once it reached lunar orbit. And inside lies, essentially, a three-story house for astronauts traveling on long-duration missions. The first floor could act as storage for food and other equipment needed along the way. The second floor is home to vegetation wall where astronauts can grow fresh foods, as well as the glove box and other instruments needed for experiments. And the third floor is where astronauts would sleep and eat.
Growing need
NASA officials have been thinking about a lunar space station for a few years now, but earlier this year the need for its pieces and parts became more fervent.
In March, the Trump administration directed NASA to put humans on the moon four years early, in 2024 instead of 2028. Under current plans, the gateway will play an important role in that mission, acting as a stopover for astronauts headed to the surface.
But just as the lunar landing timeline was pushed up, so, too, were the gateway plans. And in July, NASA tapped Northrop Grumman as the sole contractor to build the first living quarters for the moon station.
These living quarters will be smaller than originally planned, which is why Lindsey said NASA could call on Sierra Nevada to provide the more robust habitation module it has built.
Until that time, Lindsey said, the company will continue testing the prototype to ensure it’s as safe as possible for astronauts headed into deep space.
The module is not limited to the gateway, however. Lindsey said it also could be used for lunar surface habitation or a mission to Mars.
“The other thing that’s unique is we’re looking at using this not just for gateway but also potentially human habitation of planets,” he said. “Whether that’s the moon or Mars, it can be sized accordingly on the needs.”