Bigelow Aerospace’s “Fly Your Stuff” Program

[ClaytonBirchenough]

Recently I've been investigating Bigelow Aerospace’s “Fly Your Stuff” program. Not really sure why, but I found the program interesting. As there wasn’t a dedicated thread for this “program” and I have a decent amount of information regarding it, I thought I’d share what I’ve found.

Here’s a description (via Wikipedia) of the “Fly Your Stuff” program conducted by Bigelow Aerospace:

… "Fly Your Stuff" program, which allowed individuals and customers to send photographs and other small items into orbit for a fee. Several dozen of these objects were launched, and were later photographed and filmed by cameras in the spacecraft and posted on the Bigelow website for the customers to view. By December 2007, all objects launched as part of this program had been photographed and distributed to customers. This included the first lychee in space. Guy Pignolet de Pluton, a professor at University of La Réunion in Sainte-Rose, Réunion, provided the lychee which has been imaged on Bigelow Aerospace's website. 

Here’s a description (via Wikipedia) of the company Bigelow Aerospace that launched the Genesis II spacecraft:

Bigelow Aerospace is a North Las Vegas, Nevada space technology startup company that is pioneering work on expandable space station modules. Bigelow Aerospace was founded by Robert Bigelow in 1998 and is funded in large part by the fortune Bigelow gained through his ownership of the hotel chain Budget Suites of America. By 2013, Bigelow had invested US$250 million in the company. Bigelow has stated on multiple occasions that he is prepared to fund Bigelow Aerospace with about US$500 million through 2015 in order to achieve launch of full-scale hardware.
Bigelow is pioneering a new market in a flexible and configurable set of space habitats. Moreover, industry observers have noted that Bigelow is demonstrating audacity to pioneer such a market "in a capital-intensive, highly-regulated industry like spaceflight.”

Here’s a description (via Wikipedia) of the Genesis Pathfinder Module named Genesis II:

Genesis II is the second experimental space habitat designed and built by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace, and was launched in 2007. As the second module sent into orbit by the company, this spacecraft builds on the data and experience gleaned from its previously orbited sister-ship Genesis I to continue testing the long-term viability of expandable space structures. Like its sister-ship and other modules being designed by Bigelow Aerospace, this spacecraft is based on the NASA TransHab design, which provides increased interior volume and reduced launch diameter along with potentially reduced mass compared to traditional rigid structures.

Here’s the basic timeline of events for the “Fly Your Stuff” program:

6/13/2006 – “Fly Your Stuff” program announced, reservations available
8/19/2006 – Customers can now order “Fly Your Stuff” payload space
11/2/2006 – Opportunity to purchase “Fly Your Stuff” payload space ends
6/28/2007 – Launch from Dombarovsky Base, Russia @ 15:02:00 UTC aboard a Dnepr

I’ve always wondered if a similar program could be created to bring pictures/objects to the ISS for a profit. Apparently, customers were still left wanting more out of the program, which Bigelow did not provide.

Anyway, the documents attached should be useful for those investigating this program. Attached documents are from a web archive site made into a PDF using a webpage to PDF converter.

[Orbital Debris]

Attached is one of the photos of the Fly Your stuff compartment on the spacecraft - downloaded from the same web archive.  Also attached is a layout of the Genesis II cameras for reference.  Visible in the attached photos are some of the 'floaties' - random objects that customers sent in. This view was taken from camera 16, through a plexiglas shield that contained the FYS within the forward cylindrical area.  From my memory, some of the objects are a small photo cube, adjacent to the cube is the lychee mentioned above by Clayton, a sticker from blahblah.com, a laminated card from a jewelry merchant (can't recall the name), above the lychee to  the left is the knob from someone's synthesizer(friesen?).  On the right lower portion of the photo was some artwork done on a slip of tyvec material (stuck to the plexiglas).   In the upper right hand corner is one of the picture cards outside the area, "laying" on the plexiglas.  The flight card is actually a photo of one of the current employees of BA.
The bright spot at the bottom was an LED to illuminate the area.

[ClaytonBirchenough]

Orbital Debris, any idea if the above picture titled "genesis-2-spec3.jpg" is to scale?

[Orbital Debris]

It is close with respect to the core and softgoods, but it was just sketched up in MS paint.  The size and angle of the arrays are off the most.