Science News Archive

Bouncy Space Station

Las Vegas based space company Bigelow Aerospace have just this week successfully launched their second inflatable spacecraft into Earth orbit.

Bigelow Aerospace intend to launch the worlds first commercial inflatable space station by the year 2010 called Sundancer which will hold a crew of three and in 2012 they intend to launch an add on module called BA330 which will make the whole Bigelow station larger than the current International Space Station.

The recently launched module is called Genesis 2 and is the second test mission using the ultra tough inflatable design. The craft includes 22 cameras, both inside and outside and also contains a number of personal items sent up to space by the public. Mostly people paid to send photos and memorabilia and the first images sent back show these items floating around inside the cabin.

Genesis 2 also carries a bingo ball selector which will be activated in the coming weeks so that people can play space bingo on the Bigelow web page

1st Jul 2007