Bigelow Aerospace

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Bigelow Aerospace, LLC
legal form Limited Liability Company
founding 1999
Seat Las Vegas , Nevada , USA
management Robert Bigelow , Blair Bigelow
Number of employees 0
Branch Space travel
Website http://www.bigelowaerospace.com

Bigelow Aerospace is a Las Vegas , Nevada aerospace company working on a novel technology for space station modules with an expandable Vectran outer skin .

The company was founded in 1999 by Robert Bigelow and is financed by Bigelow's fortune, which was made by owning a hotel chain (Budget Suites of America) in the United States. In 2004 the company acquired the rights to the Transhab technology.

In March 2020, Bigelow Aerospace fired all employees, justifying this with the Covid-19 pandemic .

Company portrait

The basis of the product range is the Transhab technology from NASA . This allows a habitat to start in a folded state (saving space). After the entry into the corresponding orbit, the habitat is inflated in order to provide the "living space" for a crew that is not required during the launch phase.

Business areas

Robert Bigelow sees the commercial use of the future space station in two areas. On the one hand, there are numerous nations with their own space travelers , but with no or limited access to the International Space Station . On the other hand, Robert Bigelow sees potential in the industrial use for material, pharmaceutical and µ-gravitational research as well as in a possible future space production (under microgravity), e.g. B. carbon nanotubes .

In public, due to the press releases, the opinion is expressed that the space complex, especially the space tourism as a space hotel will serve. However, R. Bigelow does not see a large market in this area due to the high costs and the small number of potential candidates.

Products

The first two modules Genesis 1 & 2 were used to test the technology. The following Galaxy module was discontinued for cost reasons and due to the successful testing of Genesis 1 & 2. The Sundancer module should have served as the basis for expanding the station, but was canceled in 2011 and replaced by the successor B330 (at that time BA 330).

module volume begin Carrier system status
Genesis I 11.5 m³ July 12, 2006 Dnepr in orbit
Genesis II 11.5 m³ June 28, 2007 Dnepr in orbit
Galaxy 16.7 m³ omitted omitted Start canceled
BEAM 16 m³. April 8, 2016 Falcon 9 CRS-8 in orbit at the ISS
Sundancer 180 m³ deleted, replaced by B330 painted deleted, replaced by B330
B330 (originally BA 330) 330 m³ 2020 Atlas 5 in planning
Orbital Complex Construction initially 2 × B330 ? see B330 in planning

Transport systems

Some nations, such as the USA , Russia , European countries , Japan , the People's Republic of China and India have the capability for unmanned space travel . The large number of available carrier systems for satellite launches has a positive effect on price developments. However , only a few nations are qualified for manned space travel . After the Space Shuttle program has been terminated , Russia and China will be the only nations with manned access to space. This leads to a monopoly that negatively affects price developments. Although Bigelow Aerospace may have its own space station in a few years, access to it is not yet assured.

While all of the manufacturer's space station modules are sent unmanned into earth orbit, manned spaceships are required to transport the space travelers. Due to the lack of availability of commercially inexpensive transporters, Bigelow Aerospace awarded the America's Space Prize in 2004 , with prize money of $ 50 million. This prize money should go to a privately financed US company if it were to send a manned spacecraft into orbit by January 10, 2010. The deadline passed without a candidate even coming close to meeting the criteria. The only promising company was SpaceX , but it violated the rules of competition by accepting funds from the US government.

In September 2009, Boeing signed NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program (CCDev) in partnership with Bigelow Aerospace . The aim of the partnership was to develop and build a CST-100 spacecraft to supply the ISS, and Bigelow participated in the tests in 2012.

In May 2012, Bigelow and SpaceX announced a collaboration. The companies plan to use Falcon missiles to transport customers to Bigelow stations in orbit. End of 2018 reserved Bigelow four flights of the Falcon 9 and SpaceX Spaceship Crew Dragon to the ISS . The stays in a Bigelow module on the ISS should last two months and initially cost 52 million US dollars per person. However, Bigelow quickly abandoned this plan because of the bureaucratic hurdles involved in using the ISS.

Visions

If the construction and use of the Bigelow Alpha space station is successful, Robert Bigelow sees the future in an L1 - or moon base . This idea of ​​using deployable or inflatable structures was also suggested by NASA for the post-International Space Station era.

Others

From 2007 to 2012 Bigelow Aerospace investigated sightings of unidentified objects in flight for the US Department of Defense as part of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program .

literature

  • Eric Seedhouse: Bigelow Aerospace - Colonizing Space One Module at a Time. Springer, Cham 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-05196-3 .

Web links

 Wikinews: Bigelow Aerospace  - in the news
Commons : Bigelow Aerospace  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Who We Are. Bigelow Aerospace, October 2017, accessed March 16, 2019 .
  2. ^ Jeff Foust: Bigelow Aerospace lays off entire workforce . Spacenews, March 23, 2020.
  3. ↑ Madhu Unnikrishnan: Bigelow Marketing Inflatable Space Stations. (No longer available online.) Aviation Week, May 6, 2010, formerly the original ; accessed on January 2, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.aviationweek.com
  4. ^ A b Jeff Foust: Bigelow Aerospace's big day at the rodeo. The Space Review, July 24, 2006, accessed March 31, 2011 .
  5. ^ Leonard David: Bigelow Aerospace does rocket reality check. msnbc.msn.com, September 28, 2007, archived from the original on June 1, 2012 ; accessed on March 2, 2011 .
  6. ^ Expediting BA 330 Development. July 2011, archived from the original ; accessed on December 10, 2018 (English): "Due to customer demand and progress in commercial crew transportation, Bigelow Aerospace has moved directly to BA 330 development. As the name indicates, the BA 330 will provide roughly 330 cubic meters of usable volume and can support a crew of up to six. The BA 330 can function as an independent space station, or several BA 330s can be combined to support an even larger orbital complex. "It's extremely exciting to proceed with the actual construction of BA 330s," said Robert T. Bigelow, President and founder of Bigelow Aerospace, "This robust habitat will serve as the backbone for a new, dynamic era of commercial human spaceflight. The BA 330 will support a wide variety of utilization and exploration missions both in Low Earth Orbit and beyond. "
  7. ^ Dan Cohen: Developing a Galaxy. webcitation.org, archived from the original on November 24, 2007 ; accessed on March 30, 2011 (English).
  8. ↑ Extensive modifications to the ISS are being planned. August 12, 2013, accessed on November 28, 2014 (German).
  9. ↑ BEAM Facts and Figures: Learn of the Module Launching on SpaceX Dragon. In: nasa.gov. Retrieved January 8, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Justin Ray: Atlas 5 to launch commercial space habitat for Bigelow Aerospace. spaceflightnow.com, April 11, 2016, accessed April 12, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Boeing submits proposal for NASA Commercial Crew Transportation System. Boeing, September 23, 2009, accessed January 2, 2011 : “Joining Boeing on the CCDev team will be Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, LLC. Bigelow Aerospace will provide additional investment, requirements for crew transportation to its Orbital Space Complex, and its expertise from testing and validating the technologies necessary to construct and deploy a full-scale, crewed, commercial orbital space complex "
  12. ↑ 2011 US Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts: Vehicles, Technologies, and Spaceports (p. 44f). (PDF; 4.3 MB) FAA, January 2011, accessed on March 26, 2011 (English).
  13. ↑ Bigelow's inflatable space stations - Sen.com. Retrieved December 7, 2018 .
  14. ↑ SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace Join Forces to Offer Crewed Missions to Private Space Stations. SpaceX May 10, 2012; Archived from the original on May 13, 2012 ; accessed on May 12, 2012 .
  15. ↑ Bigelow Space Operations Announces it has Reserved up to Four Dedicated SpaceX Launches to the International Space Station. Bigelow Space Operatioons, June 7, 2019, accessed June 11, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Loren Grush: Bigelow's next-generation inflatable space habitat is shooting for the Moon . The Verge, September 13, 2019.
  17. ↑ Günther Glatzel: Bigelow: The goal is a moon habitat. raumfahrer.net, May 28, 2013, accessed on November 18, 2017 (German).
  18. ^ Moon Dreams. Economist.com, February 18, 2010, accessed March 26, 2011 .
  19. ↑ Harley A. Thronson et al .: Review of US Concepts for Post-ISS Space Habitation Facilities and Future Opportunities. AAIA, 2010, accessed March 3, 2011 .
  20. ↑ USA searched for years for UFOs zeit.de, accessed on March 14, 2018
  21. ^ Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious UFO Program nytimes.com