Bigelow gets set for next stage in space

By Leonard David

Special to Space News

updated 2:53 p.m. ET March 26, 2007

While its Genesis 1 expandable module circles Earth, Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas is preparing a follow-on inflatable spacecraft for launch and getting ready to unveil its long-term business plan for space habitats.

As an entrepreneurial space development company, Bigelow Aerospace has as its primary focus the development of habitable complexes for a multitude of space users.

The firm’s first foothold in Earth orbit was the Genesis 1 module, which launched last July 12 atop a Dnepr booster under contract with ISC Kosmotras, a Russian and Ukrainian rocket-for-hire company. The booster — a silo-launched converted Cold War SS-18 ICBM — roared skyward from the Yasny Launch Base, an active Russian strategic missile facility.

After reaching orbit, Genesis 1 expanded from a diameter of about 5 feet (1.5 meters) to a configuration that is now more than 8 feet (2.44 meters) across. In its pressurized, fully expanded status, the module yields 406 cubic feet (11.5 cubic meters) of usable volume and is energized by eight solar arrays — four on each end of the structure.

Genesis 1 remains in excellent shape, with healthy avionics, and is exhibiting good thermal conditions as it orbits Earth, said Robert Bigelow, founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace, as well as owner of the Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain, among other enterprises.

Last December, Genesis 1 took a major radiation hit from a solar storm. “It knocked us for a loop … it hit us pretty hard. Our mission control operators [in Las Vegas] had to redo and reboot the complete system,” Bigelow told Space News in a March 15 telephone interview. “We were one fault away from the spacecraft being dead had we not succeeded in rebooting all the systems.”

Bigelow’s next space module, Genesis 2, is now being prepped for shipment to Russia. It is scheduled to be launched via a Dnepr rocket in April.

“Certainly, Genesis 1 has prepared us for the Genesis 2 mission, both in terms of experience with the hardware and experience with operating the systems. The true value of Genesis 1 is occurring now, and that is proving its durability and validity over a period of time. It has both exceeded our expectations and resulted in accelerating our schedule,” Mike Gold, corporate counsel for Bigelow Aerospace in Washington, said in a March 13 interview.

Next-gen Genesis
Genesis 2 will carry several new systems — such as reaction wheels for attitude control as well as a distributed, multitank inflation system, an improvement on the single-tank design of Genesis 1.

“By using multiple tanks, the reliability of the inflation process is increased and allows for discrete gas control. This is the next evolutionary step toward maintaining the multiple gas supplies needed for our future man-tended vehicles,” Eric Haakonstad, program manager for Bigelow Aerospace, says on the company’s Web site.

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Genesis 2 also sports a significant avionics enhancement with much more redundancy, Bigelow said. Genesis 2 will carry 22 cameras, nearly double the number on board Genesis 1. There also will be two exterior projection systems designed to demonstrate the casting of messages onto the spacecraft’s exterior “for ad purposes or just for fun,” Bigelow said.

Additionally, the Genesis 2 mission includes a “Fly Your Stuff” program whereby customers for a fee can see their own objects floating in microgravity inside the module. An experimental “Space Bingo” project is also to be conducted utilizing Genesis 2.

New ground control stations also are being readied for Genesis 2 in Alaska and Hawaii. The new facilities will augment the central mission control center in Las Vegas, and will make it possible to communicate with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 for about 5 hours a day, Bigelow said. “We’ve increased the ground control staff … we have new people coming on board this year,” he said.

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