For now, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module – Beam for short – will remain mostly off-limits to the six-man station crew.
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This is the second time SpaceX has successfully landed one of its rockets post-launch; the first time was in December, when the company’s Falcon 9 rocket touched down at a ground-based landing site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after putting a satellite into space.
Aboard the ISS however, they are taking things very slowly indeed with the inflatable pod being attached to the station, but will not be inflated until May at the earliest.
Sunday was SpaceX’s first delivery for Nasa in a year. Inflatable habitats are created to take up less room on a rocket, but provide greater volume for living and working in space once expanded, NASA said, noting that this test allows investigators to gauge how well the expandable habitat protects itself against solar radiation, space debris and contamination. In order to avoid shouldering the burden of this dream alone, NASA has hired companies like SpaceX to deliver cargo, and in the future, also personnel, to the ISS.
Astronauts, including the UK’s Tim Peake, orbiting 250 miles above Earth used a robotic arm to capture the Dragon, which holds three tonnes of freight and had as part of its payload a soft-sided compartment built by Bigelow Aerospace.
Four Russian spaceships – two Progress cargo carriers and two Soyuz capsules which ferry astronauts – are docked at the space station, along with Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo ship and SpaceX’s Dragon.
SpaceX resumed station deliveries for NASA on Friday, and in a double triumph, successfully landed its booster rocket on an ocean platform for the first time. This isn’t the first time SpaceX has caught the attention of President Obama.
SpaceX is reportedly aiming to begin a new phase of reusable rockets and make private space travel affordable. With its recent successful launch on a barge, the firm has demonstrated that it can do both types of landings.
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SpaceX’s unmanned Dragon cargo ship, carrying lettuce seeds, laboratory mice and an inflatable pop-up room, arrived on Sunday at a crowded International Space Station where six spacecraft are now docked. SpaceX was returned to flight status after the disaster and its latest resupply mission to the ISS has been completed without any issues.
