NASA had an unexpected while inflating an experimental module that is attached to the International Space Station and Thursday had to postpone all at least one day.
Mission Control astronaut Jeffrey Williams ordered to cancel the operation after trying more than two hours, while the compartment swelled just a few centimeters. The process could will resume on Friday, depending on what engineers determined.
“Thank you all for your patience today, we hope for better luck tomorrow,” radioed Mission Control. “That’s the thing in space,” said Williams.
It was supposed to take only an hour to the inflatable chamber known as BEAM , the first of its kind, grew four times its volume.
Everything was going very well at the start when Williams opened a valve, gently letting in air to BEAM, short for Expandable Activity Module Bigelow.
Williams kept the valve open only a few seconds and then closed while ground controllers monitored the increase in pressure within the chamber. He did it four times before Mission Control asked him to stop because pressure readings out of the ordinary were recorded. Astronaut began again, but again asked to stop because no significant increases were apparent. Shortly after he was when NASA suspended the operation.
The operation must be done in daylight, when there is strong communications with Mission Control .
BEAM is the work of Bigelow Aerospace, Robert Bigelow owned by businessman. NASA paid 17.8 million dollars to the company, based in North Las Vegas, to test the concept of inflatable habitat on the Space Station.
The expandable module has soft edges, several layers and measured 2 meters long and about 2.5 meters in diameter when the probe SpaceX him up to the space station last month. He had grown a few centimeters on Thursday when the operation is stopped. Once inflated, BEAM is expected to reach 4 meters long and 3.2 cm (13 and 10.5 feet, respectively).
The company Bigelow Aerospace hopes to launch even larger inflatable habitats in the future for tourists space and for astronauts who go to Mars.
the plan is that two years BEAM remain attached to the ISS.
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