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Bigelow Aerospace Launch!

Mazon Del

By Mazon Del
in Science & Spaceflight

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ModZero

ModZero

Posted
Posted
40 minutes ago, fredinno said:

The 20T number is considered "lightly furnished". However, a full Lab module can go up to 41T, which basically makes use of all the space in the module.

20T is from Wiki, which comes from Bigelow himself. Where do the numbers on the website named after being overly optimistic come from?

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fredinno

fredinno

Posted
Posted
33 minutes ago, ModZero said:

20T is from Wiki, which comes from Bigelow himself. Where do the numbers on the website named after being overly optimistic come from?

20T is just listed as BA-330. Not "empty" or "full," just 20T for a BA-330. By the pictures Bigelow gives, it's relatively empty, but not 100% empty. That would be the 16T number I gave you, since it is listed as the "basic" density for inflatables.

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ModZero

ModZero

Posted
Posted
Just now, fredinno said:

20T is just listed as BA-330. Not "empty" or "full," just 20T for a BA-330. By the pictures Bigelow gives, it's relatively empty, but not 100% empty. That would be the 16T number I gave you, since it is listed as the "basic" density for inflatables.

That's just an illustration. It also includes a bunch of people, I guess those are inflatable as well. And it still doesn't explain where that website got its 16t number from. At least Wikipedia has sources.

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fredinno

fredinno

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, ModZero said:

That's just an illustration. It also includes a bunch of people, I guess those are inflatable as well. And it still doesn't explain where that website got its 16t number from. At least Wikipedia has sources.

It's based off the density of Sundancer, which is basically an empty scaled down BA-330, and off thishttp://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php#id--Habitat_Module--TransHab

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ModZero

ModZero

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, fredinno said:

It's based off the density of Sundancer, which is basically an empty scaled down BA-330, and off thishttp://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php#id--Habitat_Module--TransHab

That's guesswork. It's worthless for anything than entertainment. You don't get to scale up an "empty sundancer". Too many things scale non-linearly. You certainly don't get to be more optimistic than manufacturer's spec, so unless you can show me Bigelow's spec that says 16t lets just disregard the website quoting libertarian cartoons in technical analysis, shall we?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Kryten

Kryten

Posted
Posted

When asked where the money was going to come from for this launch, the responses boiled down to 'that's premature' and 'maybe NASA'. AFAICT there's no actual launch contract from this announcement, just a 'launch slot reservation' and some minor studies into payload integration; somebody still has to stump up the cash, and it really sounds like they want that somebody to be NASA. That isn't going to happen.

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ModZero

ModZero

Posted
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57 minutes ago, Kryten said:

When asked where the money was going to come from for this launch, the responses boiled down to 'that's premature' and 'maybe NASA'. AFAICT there's no actual launch contract from this announcement, just a 'launch slot reservation' and some minor studies into payload integration; somebody still has to stump up the cash, and it really sounds like they want that somebody to be NASA. That isn't going to happen.

Eh, it doesn't exactly sound like the most expensive NASA ever funded. Wouldn't bet my pants on it, but it still just might happen. Then US would get a decade of trying to justify maintaining two balloons in space, but they'll be fine. The balloons, that is.

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Steel

Steel

Posted
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10 hours ago, ModZero said:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/ula-bigelow-partnership-first-commercial-space-stations/

Uhuhu, ambitious. I must say I like how they call corporate investment "democratisation". Also, 2020, that's almost when Skylon will fly</trololo>.

If I had to put money on it, skylon will fly 5-10 years after they demonstrate the engine actually performs as planned, assuming they get funding to develop the whole vehicle themselves and some huge Aerospace firm doesn't just buy the rights to the engine.

Bear in mind all they have now is a pre-cooler I think 2020 might be a tad on the optimistic side :P

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ModZero

ModZero

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, NateDaBeast said:

When will the BEAM be deployed ? It's sometime in April I think but can't find out unless it's already happened.

The teleconference after CRS-8 actually had this question, around 28:54, inflation 25-26th of May (lot of work to prepare, and they want a quiet period).

2 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

Whoa. Why are they doing this.

Because they can afford it and the taxes are too low.

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  • 1 month later...
kerbiloid

kerbiloid

Posted
Posted
Quote

Upcoming Events (All Times Eastern)

    5:30 a.m., Thursday, May 26 - Coverage of the Expansion of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) at the ISS (Expansion scheduled to begin at 6:10 a.m. ET; could begin up to 25 minutes earlier based on operational readiness) (all channels)

Meanwhile.

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PB666

PB666

Posted
Posted (edited)

Well its 0700 CDT here, the expansion was stopped because of overpressure on one of the indicators.

Because of that the decided to slow the rate of expansion. So the decided to recalculate and . . . .

This then interfered with several exercise schedules on the ISS.

So then they had to confer with everyone and get permissions from the Russians to delay their exercise schedule.

And so now waiting to get permission . . . . . .

And the vid link froze again is not updating.....

Saw two multimeters on either side, not sure if one is registering voltage, looks low, the other was on previously but is no apparently off.

Edited by PB666
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dino1984

dino1984

Posted
Posted

How boring can it be? Watching it live at NASA TV and I've already took a nap in the meanwhile and they're still not done :D

And seriously: what is about that pressurization curve? Did it changed its shape to much or what?
 

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PB666

PB666

Posted
Posted (edited)

Well they increased pressure from 21.0 on the multimeter to 22.3. it dropped slowly back to 22.1, then he opened for a sec at 23.7 final.

The module is not expanding, and pressure dropped again slowly "No noticeable change". Things are a bit concerned on the ground.

So looks like the are increasing internal pressure, the pressure is dropping slowly but no noticable expansion. Could be a leak?

So they are questioning right now whether to continue or try again at some later point. The last pressure I saw before the video rotate was 23.5

I got another glance it was 23.5. So with the drop in pressure they should have seen some expansion, but the pressure loss has stabilized and it appears to be filling something, equilibrating, but the module is not inflating in a measurable way.

 

 

 

Edited by PB666
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PB666

PB666

Posted
Posted (edited)

Well they terminated operations for 22 hours. They are going to swap out the multimeters for tomorrow, probably.

"Expansion did not occur along the pressure curve". (Translation no measurable expansion).

Hopefully it will miraculously expand overnight.

Steps 1 through 3 completed successfully

Step 4, iniital expansion phase, proceeding with difficulty.

 

Edited by PB666
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