The U.S.
Government has given payload approval to Bigelow Aerospace permitting the
entrepreneurial firm to launch its inflatable space module technology.
Bigelow Aerospace of North Las
Vegas, Nevada has blueprinted a step-by-step program to explore the use of inflatable
Earth orbiting modules. Those modules would not only support made-in-microgravity
product development, but serve as the technology foundation for eventual space tourist
housing and use of similar structures on the Moon and Mars.
The Federal Aviation
Administration's (FAA) Associate Administrator for Commercial Space
Transportation (AST) has given Bigelow Aerospace payload approval for flying
its Genesis inflatable module - one-third scale hardware crafted to lead to a
much larger space habitat dubbed the Nautilus.
Extensive review
The FAA-AST approval letter
of November 17 regarding the Bigelow Aerospace scale demonstration module comes
after an extensive review of the concept, including its construction, materials
used, shielding technology, the in-space inflation process to be utilized, as
well as the deorbiting of the test module.
"Obtaining the FAA-AST payload approval for
Genesis is a first of its kind," explained Mike Gold, corporate counsel for
Bigelow Aerospace in Washington,
D.C. "This will go a long way to
establishing a good precedent for the inflatables," he told SPACE.com.
"This is a first step...but
an important first step along the road that Bigelow Aerospace is traveling,"
Gold added. To obtain the "favorable payload determination" by the FAA-AST, a
review process took place over roughly an eight-month period, he said.
Gold said that the approval
letter is not "rocket specific" and carries no deadline date. The letter
indicates, he said, that if a launch operator applies to the FAA for license to
launch a vehicle carrying the Genesis payload, the favorable payload
determination will be incorporated in the review of the license application.
Nascent space firms
"It's one small step for
the FAA-AST, one giant leap for Bigelow Aerospace," Gold said. He saluted the
FAA-AST for helping nascent space firms move forward and for taking a larger
look at the role entrepreneurs and new technologies can play in space.
Bigelow Aerospace is headed
by Robert Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain, among a
roster of other business ventures.
The current plan is to
launch the Genesis payload on the private booster, the Falcon V, a derivative
of the still-to-fly Falcon 1 being built by Space Exploration Technologies
Corporation (SpaceX) in El
Segundo,
California.
The Genesis prototype
hardware would be onboard the Falcon V's maiden flight that is targeted for a
November 2005 time frame.
Bigelow Aerospace also
plans to loft a Genesis Pathfinder module in April 2006, using a silo-launched Dnepr
booster under contract with ISC Kosmotras, a Russian and Ukrainian
rocket-for-hire company.
America's Space Prize: international contestants not precluded
Earlier this month, Bigelow
Aerospace took the wraps off the $50 million "America's Space Prize". That contest,
with a January 10, 2010 deadline, is designed to stimulate the building of orbital,
crew-carrying spacecraft that have the ability to dock with a Bigelow Aerospace
inflatable space habitat.
"We've gotten lots of
interest from a variety of sources," Gold said. "It has run the spectrum from
small entrepreneurial groups to interest from larger traditional aerospace
companies."
There have been some gripes
from would-be contestants not based in the United
States.
In the primary rules for
the competition it states that the contestant must be domiciled in the United States of
America.
Furthermore, the contestant must have its principal place of business in the U.S.
For one, if a spacecraft
system is developed domestically in the United States, a benefit is not
dealing with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and export
control issues that can be "quite difficult and quite problematic," Gold
explained.
However, Gold added, those
two prize rules should not be construed as some kind of blanket prohibition on
international participation. "I would imagine that an international entity
would be able to easily establish a subsidiary of some kind that would meet
those two requirements."
"America's Space Prize in no way
precludes international participation. That's just not the case," Gold said.
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