After hours of problems, NASA called off an attempt to expand an inflatable room at the International Space Station on Thursday morning.
- Bigelow Expandable Activity Module is an inflatable habitat
- BEAM designed to be lightweight for rocket launches
- NASA called off 1st attempt to expand BEAM after problems
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, an experimental, expandable module, wasn't inflating as it should.
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams started letting air into a vent to inflate the expandable module at about 6:10 a.m. But despite the air, the room wasn't expanding to what NASA expected.
“Unfortunately we’re going to have to stand down with the BEAM operations today," said Jessica Meir of NASA Mission Control. "We’ve been assessing all the perimeters from the ground, and due to our setup, no-go conditions and not seeing any noticeable movement, we’re going to have to reassess further from here.”
NASA managers will now review data to see what went wrong.
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A SpaceX cargo capsule delivered the BEAM to the space station last month.
After the BEAM is expanded, NASA will look at how the harsh conditions of space — including extreme temperatures, meteorite debris and radiation — impact the expandable habitat over the next two years.
NASA says these expandable habitats take up less room on a rocket, but should provide greater volume for living and working in space. Eventually, inflatable modules could be used as a place for astronauts to live on the surface of Mars, or it could be attached to Orion spacecraft while astronauts are traveling on a deep space mission.
NASA said it may try again tomorrow to expand the module.