NASA HIAD: Changing the Way We Explore Worlds

A giant cone of inner tubes assembled sort of like a child's stacking ring toy may some day help cargo, or even people, land on another planet, return to Earth or any destination with an atmosphere.

NASA calls the inflatable spacecraft technology Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator or HIAD, for short.

The HIAD could give NASA more options for future planetary missions, because it could allow spacecraft to carry larger, heavier scientific instruments and other tools for exploration.

Bigelow Inflatable Space Station: Downsizes Dramatically

Hang Time: in Earth orbit courtesy of Bigelow Aerospace expandable modules.

The company unveiled a business plan to populate space with habitable complexes for international space agencies and multinational corporations.

CREDIT: Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing inflatable space habitats for commercial use, confirmed they had laid off some 40 of its 90 employees Sept. 29.


"We are proceeding with a core group of fifty plus engineers, managers and support staff," Mike Gold, Bigelow Aerospace's director of Washington operations and business growth.

"This core group allows us to retain key human capital and capabilities, with which we are continuing to aggressively pursue the development and eventual deployment of the BA 330 system."

The BA 330 is a six-person inflatable space station Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nev., is developing to serve commercial and government human spaceflight markets.

The BA 330 is one of the proposed commercial platforms Boeing Co. intends to serve with the CST-100 space capsule it is developing with financial assistance from NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.

NASA and the Inflatable Space Station

NASA is planning to investigate making inflatable space-station modules to make roomier, lighter, cheaper-to-launch spacecraft, it reveals in its budget proposal released on 22 February. We look into the technologies involved.

What are the attractions of inflatable spacecraft?

The weight of material that must be boosted to orbit is the major contributor to a space mission's cost, due to the expense of sending anything into Earth orbit. Folded fabric packages that inflate, concertina style, to full size once in orbit offer more spacecraft volume for a given launch mass than a traditional metal-based unit.

Where did the idea come from?

NASA engineers came up with the idea in the early 1960s, and tire manufacturer Goodyear was even commissioned to build prototypes, which initially looked much like giant rubber inner tubes (see image, right).

The idea was developed up until the 1990s, when development of an inflatable living quarters unit for the nascent International Space Station (ISS), called TransHab, was scrapped due to budget constraints. The relevant NASA patents were then licensed to a commercial start up, Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, Nevada. See a video interview with a Bigelow engineer above.

How has Bigelow developed the idea?

The firm's team of 100 space-flight and aerospace engineers has developed a whole family of what it calls "expandable" spacecraft and has even tested some uncrewed versions in orbit.

The small 3-metre-long, 2-metre-diameter Genesis I and Genesis II test craft were launched in 2006 and 2007 on decommissioned former Russian SS18 nuclear missiles. Both expanded in orbit successfully and maintained pressure well enough to make a full size module habitable.

A 180-cubic-metre version called Sundancer is now being assembled, with a 330-cubic-metre version in planning.

How are the modules inflated?

Bigelow modules are made from flexible, airtight fabric. Once in orbit tanks of nitrogen and oxygen release a breathable mix inside, expanding the structure by 40 per cent as the gas inside pushes the skin outwards into the vacuum of space. The structure's diameter expands but its length does not change. Air pressure of just 1 atmosphere is needed to expand a module. This is all that astronauts moving in will need to breathe.