Ae inflatable habitats the future of human space exploration? This is what the space-tech company, Sierra Space, hopes to achieve as they recently conducted a successful Ultimate Burst Pressure test on June 18 with its Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE®) technology at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The goal of these tests is to inflate the test article until it explodes while ascertaining if the maximum pressure falls within NASA’s strict safety guidelines regarding a recommended operating pressure of 60.8 psi (maximum operating pressure of 15.2 psi times four as a safety factor). Upon explosion, Sierra Space engineers immediately found the recent test achieved 74 psi, thus exceeding NASA’s safety standards by 22 percent.
“We are 100 percent committed to maintaining U.S. leadership in Low Earth Orbit. Sierra Space is leading the way with the first commercial space station to replace the International Space Station when it is decommissioned and ensure there is no gap in LEO,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice. “Our revolutionary, expandable space station technology reinvents the space station. Our technology, for the first time, will enable the right unit economics that will usher in the full commercialization of space. Our biotech and industrial partners will utilize our factories of the future to innovate new products that will massively disrupt terrestrial markets and benefit life on Earth.”
This recent test marks the technology’s second full-scale structural test and seventh key validation test, which comes after Sierra Space successfully conducted its first full-scale burst test in December 2023, achieving 77 psi and exceeding NASA’s safety standards by 27 percent. Both test units stood at more than 6 meters (20 feet) in height and had volumes of 300 m3 (10,594 ft3), or approximately 1/3rd of the pressurized volume of the International Space Station (ISS). Sierra Space is now planning for the first test of its 500 m3 (17,657 ft3) space station technology in 2025, which will be 55 percent of the pressurized volume of the ISS.
“No other company is moving at the speed of Sierra Space to develop actual hardware, stress-tested at full scale, and demonstrate repeatability. We’ve taken a softgoods system that very few companies around the world have been able to design, and now we have consistent, back-to-back results,” said Shawn Buckley, VP of Earthspace™ Systems, Space Stations, at Sierra Space. “A second successful full-scale test is an absolute game changer. We now know it’s possible to equal or surpass the total habitable volume of the entire International Space Station, in a single launch.”
While these two recent tests were conducted at full-scale, Sierra Space conducted two sub-scale burst tests in July 2022 and November 2022, achieving maximum pressures of 192 and 204 psi, respectively, with NASA’s safety standards being 182.4 psi given the sub-scale sizes, thus both tests successfully exceeding these safety standards.
Sierra Space stated in June 2023 that they hope to launch a “pathfinder” version of the LIFE® habitat in 2026 with the goal of the technology being an essential piece to the Orbital Reef commercial space station, with the latter scheduled to be operational in 2027. Given its size, Sierra Space estimates the LIFE® habitat can comfortably accommodate four astronauts with the remaining volume being used for science experiments, exercise equipment, small medical facilities, and the Astro Garden® system, which can potentially grow food in space and has previously undergone testing at the Sierra Space Madison WI facility.
This comes as numerous commercial space companies are attempting to launch their own space stations, including the Axiom Station, Starlab Space Station, Haven-1, and the aforementioned Orbital Reef space station. Additionally, this also comes as NASA announced their plans to “retire” the ISS in 2030, although the agency announced in a July 2024 white paper that they will evaluate the possibility of extending the lifetime of the ISS if no commercial space stations are able to accommodate space-based research at that time.
How will Sierra Space’s Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE®) technology help advance human space exploration in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!