Bigelow Expandable Activity Module

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module

Full-scale mock-up of BEAM at Johnson Space Center
Station statistics
Launch date:	April 8, 2016, 20:43 UTC
Launch vehicle:	Falcon 9 Full Thrust (SpaceX CRS-8)
Berthed:	April 16, 2016, 09:36 UTC Tranquility aft
Unberthed:	Planned: 2018
Mass:	1,413.0 kg (3,115.1 lb)
Length:	4.01 m (13.2 ft)
Diameter:	3.23 m (10.6 ft)
Living volume:	16.0 m3 (565 cu ft)

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is an experimental expandable space station module developed by Bigelow Aerospace, under contract to NASA, for testing as a temporary module on the International Space Station (ISS) from 2016 to 2018. It arrived at the ISS on April 10, 2016, was berthed to the station on April 16, and was expanded and pressurized on May 28, 2016.

Bigelow plans to build a second BEAM module as an airlock for the Bigelow Commercial Space Station.

NASA originally considered the idea of inflatable habitats in the 1960s, and developed the TransHab inflatable module concept in the late 1990s. The TransHab project was cancelled by Congress in 2000, and Bigelow Aerospace purchased the rights to the patents developed by NASA to pursue private space station designs. In 2006 and 2007, Bigelow launched two demonstration modules to Earth orbit, Genesis I and Genesis II.

NASA re-initiated analysis of expandable module technology for a variety of potential missions beginning in early 2010. Various options were considered, including procurement from commercial provider Bigelow Aerospace, for providing what in 2010 was proposed to be a torus-shaped storage module for the International Space Station. One application of the toroidal BEAM design was as a centrifuge demo preceding further developments of the NASA Nautilus-X multi-mission exploration concept vehicle. In January 2011, Bigelow projected that the BEAM module could be built and made flight-ready 24 months after a build contract was secured.

On December 20, 2012, NASA awarded Bigelow Aerospace a US$17.8 million contract to construct the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module under NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Program.Sierra Nevada Corporation built the $2 million Common Berthing Mechanism under a 16-month firm-fixed-price contract awarded in May 2013. NASA plans made public in mid-2013 called for a 2015 delivery of the module to the ISS. During a press event on March 12, 2015, at the Bigelow Aerospace facility in North Las Vegas, the completed ISS flight unit, compacted and with two Canadarm2 grapple fixtures attached, was displayed for the media.