Cape Canaveral - An inflatable human habitat must follow to the International Space Station on Friday for a two-year test that will check how the light modules fabric compare to traditional orbital housing made of metal, according to the Space Agency of the United States (NASA).
The habitat of the prototype, manufactured by Bigelow Aerospace, based in the US state of Nevada, was placed inside a capsule which should take off aboard a rocket SpaceX Falcon 9 Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The flight marks the fourth mission of the private company Space Exploration Technologies, entrepreneur Elon Musk technology, provided that the failure of a rocket in July last year caused the destruction of a cargo module aboard a mission to resupply bound for the Space Station.
The new mission also represents a new attempt by the California-based company to make the rocket assist the main stage of the launch vehicle return intact for a landing platform in the ocean, where it can be retrieved for future flights.
Four previous attempts failed, although a Falcon 9 has made a successful landing on the ground in December, a key milestone in SpaceX's efforts to develop an inexpensive and reusable rocket.
About a week after the delivery vehicle, or Dragon, come to the Space Station, ground controllers will use a robotic arm to remove the Expandable module Bigelow Activity, 1,400 kilos, the capsule cargo bay and tie it to one docking port.
About a month later, astronauts aboard the orbiting laboratory located 400 kilometers above the earth will inflate the Beam with pressurized air, increasing its volume until it reaches the approximate size of a small bedroom.
The Beam test period, made with layers of fabric and covered with a flexible material that resembles the Kevlar, aims to determine how well it supports the changes in temperature and high-radiation environment of space.
NASA is interested in inflatable habitats that serve as inhabitable modules for crews during trips three-year round trip to Mars.
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