Bigelow AerospaceVerified account @BigelowSpace10:23 AM - 8 Feb 2018Commercial space is not just about hardware, it’s about doing business differently. Bigelow Aerospace is ready to lead that charge. More details coming soon... http://www.bigelowspaceops.com
Also have launch mass for these habitats. NG could easily support 8.4m fairing but couldn't deliver 70t of BA2100. If fully expendable with maybe some SRBs eg GEM63XL it could do it. Would be expensive launch but cheaper than SLS.
Cargo BFS as rendered at 2017 IAC will not fit B2100 because of the way the spacecraft tapers. It can fit a 7m diameter by 7m long payload. Anything longer than 7m in length needs to be skinnier in diameter.
Dave Mosher, Business Insider: "Hi, Dave Mosher from Business Insider. Thank you so much for doing this, by the way. I want to go back to BFR for a second since you were talking about that. ...."Elon Musk: ".....The BFR, 9 meter diameter, 30 feet roughly. Diameter. Which is, yeah, you can fit a lot in 30 feet diameter. 110, 120 meters long. Yeah. Big.....
Quote from: butters on 02/10/2018 09:05 pmCargo BFS as rendered at 2017 IAC will not fit B2100 because of the way the spacecraft tapers. It can fit a 7m diameter by 7m long payload. Anything longer than 7m in length needs to be skinnier in diameter.BA-2100 is said to require an 8 meter fairing, indicating somewhat less than that internally. Are we 100% sure that in a BFS's 9 meter hull the walls are >1 meter thick?
>>Dude, just look at the thing. It's not an cylindrical, axisymmetric volume. It flattens like a wedge and tapers to a rounded nose for reentry aerodynamic reasons. BA-2100 was designed with an 8m cylindrical volume in mind. BFS is not a cylindrical volume. It can hold 8-9m diameter payloads, but only it they have a short and squat aspect ratio.
I can see Musk rounding 106m to 110m, but that 120m comment is another matter.
Quote from: docmordrid on 02/11/2018 07:34 pmI can see Musk rounding 106m to 110m, but that 120m comment is another matter.My guess is he meant to say feet. Musk looked exhausted and was trying to answer the question in the engineering units he probably actually knew to colloquial units for the press. If he meant to say "120 ft" having converted the units, but then said the wrong unit while trying to do the math in his head, then that might make more sense: 36m long sounds a lot more like the design we saw most recently. Certainly less strangely shaped than a 9m x 120m cargo bay would be.
Personally, and I know this isn’t exactly the right thread for this, I’m surprised Bigelow didn’t develop their habs with fairing integrated, so that...Then the LV provider doesn’t need to provide a fairing. It will, of course, have to work with Bigelow to ensure the design will fly stably on the LV through all modes of flight, but with the level of sophistication that currently exists with simulation and modeling, I think this is quite doable.
>Because Bigelow habs seemed to be designed with minimal propulsion meant mainly for station-keeping, they're seen primarily as suitable for space stations. Could they be used as manned deep space vessels, perhaps after some modifications? What kind of modifications would be required?
It's too bad that a large interplanetary-class rocket like BFR (or New Armstrong, etc) can't be equipped with some kind of temporary Bigelow-style expanding hab section. Because then shortly after the rocket leaves the atmosphere, the hab section could expand outward to provide much more habitation space during transit to a far location like Mars. Then as it nears that destination, perhaps the hab could be re-compressed again, before the vehicle undergoes EDL. Then after landing, maybe the hab section could be expanded again, to provide a roomier space on Mars.Because Bigelow habs seemed to be designed with minimal propulsion meant mainly for station-keeping, they're seen primarily as suitable for space stations. Could they be used as manned deep space vessels, perhaps after some modifications? What kind of modifications would be required?
Or Bigelow could develop expandable modules to fit the existing fairing sizes.
Quote from: sanman on 02/19/2018 04:00 am>Because Bigelow habs seemed to be designed with minimal propulsion meant mainly for station-keeping, they're seen primarily as suitable for space stations. Could they be used as manned deep space vessels, perhaps after some modifications? What kind of modifications would be required?The most recent animations & the below article show a B330 with a refuellable ULA ACES stage as a propulsion bus.http://spacenews.com/bigelow-and-ula-announce-plans-for-lunar-orbiting-facility/
In LEO, all of the cryogenic propellant would be transferred to one of the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES). The now full ACES would then rendezvous with the B330 and perform multiple maneuvers to deliver the B330 to its final position in Low Lunar Orbit.
With announcement supposedly tomorrow.. I believe it is about http://www.bigelowspaceops.com/i just hope it isn't another "here..come fund this..." but a "we are doing this...hop on board" announcement..but I am skepticaljb
ok..my 2 cents...that was a boring announcement...launch the thing already ..tell the companies it is 1st come 1st serve..show up now or miss out...seems they are looking for that handout again... sighjb
It is not unusual for companies to need customers before launching something. (When Boeing formally launch the 787 they had firm orders for 102 aircraft) And launching a space station is a massive investment.So this is not unusual, and has nothing to do with "looking for a handout". Doing the "build it and they will come" philosophy requires a lot of resources to back up, resources that Bigelow lacks all by themselves.If you believe Bigelow will launch a space station without a signed customer (or customers), you are in fantasy land.
(edit)BFS "pressurised volume" is given as 825m^3. Certainly more volume / mass than Falcon Heavy. It should be easy to put something like the BA-2100 into that, but it won't (or shouldn't) look exactly like the BA-2100. In both cases, would you keep the upper stage attached, so it can be used as a booster or perhaps a volatiles store? Or perhaps something similar to the old Space Shuttle ET reuse proposals?
Quote from: spacenut on 02/11/2018 01:37 pmOr Bigelow could develop expandable modules to fit the existing fairing sizes. Exactly.
Quote from: punder on 02/19/2018 06:11 pmQuote from: spacenut on 02/11/2018 01:37 pmOr Bigelow could develop expandable modules to fit the existing fairing sizes. Exactly. New fairings don't just appear out of nowhere. The payload decides how big they'll be. The 2100 could be a starting point for SpaceX, BO or whoever wants to make a huge cargo fairing or whatever delivers the payload. Talk to other potential customers, of course.
Quote from: Nomadd on 02/27/2018 09:19 pm New fairings don't just appear out of nowhere. The payload decides how big they'll be. The 2100 could be a starting point for SpaceX, BO or whoever wants to make a huge cargo fairing or whatever delivers the payload. Talk to other potential customers, of course.The point is, though, that if you are having a hard time finding customers (as Bigelow clearly does), it doesn't hurt your chances by scaling your product to fit existing fairings better. Being a launch customer (perhaps the *only* customer) for a custom fairing size is not going to be cheap.
New fairings don't just appear out of nowhere. The payload decides how big they'll be. The 2100 could be a starting point for SpaceX, BO or whoever wants to make a huge cargo fairing or whatever delivers the payload. Talk to other potential customers, of course.
The case for the 330 isn't simple. There's no way they'll redesign it for the existing Falcon fairing, and the ULA ride would cost $60 million more. If SpaceX does decide to extend theirs, I'd think Bigelow would want to be in on the conversation. As for the 2100, nothing can launch that yet, so a serious attempt to develop it would definitely be a factor in sizing the payload delivery whatever for the BFR or NG. It's a real COTE problem.
Quote from: Nomadd on 02/27/2018 09:19 pmQuote from: punder on 02/19/2018 06:11 pmQuote from: spacenut on 02/11/2018 01:37 pmOr Bigelow could develop expandable modules to fit the existing fairing sizes. Exactly. New fairings don't just appear out of nowhere. The payload decides how big they'll be. The 2100 could be a starting point for SpaceX, BO or whoever wants to make a huge cargo fairing or whatever delivers the payload. Talk to other potential customers, of course. In the case of Falcon 9, the rocket diameter also imposes some limit on the fairing diameter, which is important for Bigelow modules.
My notes show the B330 compressed diameter as 4.572m/180", which should fit in the now wider Fairing 2.0. The issue appears to be insufficient length because of an attached propulsion bus, which requires the EELV long fairing.
Under consideration. We’ve already stretched the upper stage once. Easiest part of the rocket to change. Fairing 2, flying soon, also has a slightly larger diameter. Could make fairing much longer if need be & will if BFR takes longer than expected.
You speak of the 330 as if it exists, or is anywhere close to being at a CDR. It is not. So they could scale it slightly and not throw away all their work. That's all I'm saying.
Quote from: Lars-J on 02/28/2018 06:49 pmYou speak of the 330 as if it exists, or is anywhere close to being at a CDR. It is not. So they could scale it slightly and not throw away all their work. That's all I'm saying.This fact seems to be lost in all of the conversation. And likewise, the 2100 is purely powerpoint. They can rename it any time to whatever volume they'd like. It doesn't actually exist.
The Moon Marius Hills features some underground lava tube that would be perfect for a lunar base. I wonder how hard it would be to inflate a BA-2100 inside... what would be the risks involved ?
Nice video. I would have had a segment (e.g. before and/or after) from a global POV with familiar things next to the module for scale. E.G. have it sat in between a supermarket and an average home (all three elements in cutaway for visibility's sake). You lose a bit of the scale of something when you are mazing through it with relatively narrow field of view.
If BFS costs $200M, that sets an obvious floor on a space station at $250K/m^3, which seems to be moderately close to prices that have been implied for the BA-330. And - well - if you want, you can deorbit it at any time. (in LEO at least).
Quote from: speedevil on 02/27/2018 12:40 pmIf BFS costs $200M, that sets an obvious floor on a space station at $250K/m^3, which seems to be moderately close to prices that have been implied for the BA-330. And - well - if you want, you can deorbit it at any time. (in LEO at least).Wouldn't the expanded habitat have better protection against micrometeorites?
Marginally, if you do not cover the BFS with anything.
Quote from: alexterrell on 02/22/2018 06:32 am(edit)BFS "pressurised volume" is given as 825m^3. Certainly more volume / mass than Falcon Heavy. It should be easy to put something like the BA-2100 into that, but it won't (or shouldn't) look exactly like the BA-2100. In both cases, would you keep the upper stage attached, so it can be used as a booster or perhaps a volatiles store? Or perhaps something similar to the old Space Shuttle ET reuse proposals?BFS raises the rather awkward issue of pricing.If BFS costs $200M, that sets an obvious floor on a space station at $250K/m^3, which seems to be moderately close to prices that have been implied for the BA-330. And - well - if you want, you can deorbit it at any time. (in LEO at least).But, if you don't care about mass, or inflatability, or anything fancy, you can get shielded 300m^3 or so 6m internal diameter modules up for not much more than 3* launch cost of BFS, even without any on-orbit assembly.Buy 6m aluminium inch thick tank, don't tell them it's for aerospace, pressurise to 150PSI a few times to test it, add 1m of plastic water tanks to the outside (empty), glue on aluminium foil, fill in orbit, and you've got a pressurised shielded volume that you can outfit at your leisure.This is obviously not suitable for BLEO, as it's quite high mass, but in LEO, you don't actually care about that.On other loads, you send up 10m*3m tubes, with various 'plumbing' type fittings, made from two inch thick aluminium to be on the safe side, and just attach the tanks using these.Of course, this rather depends on what BFS actually charges for launch - and what the market is.If SpaceX gets involved in orbital tourism, their only reason to not consider launches 'at cost' would be anticompetitive reasons.If they actually manage to convince people to pay $150M per launch, then you very much want bigelow type habs.
Quote from: speedevil on 05/17/2018 10:20 amMarginally, if you do not cover the BFS with anything.I would assume you would need to deploy the shield after it's in orbit. And in that case, aren't you just talking about half an expandable habitat covering the heat shield?
No.It doesn't need to hold pressure, or do any of the normal things that make an expandable habitat hard.
If BFS costs $200M, that sets an obvious floor on a space station at $250K/m^3, which seems to be moderately close to prices that have been implied for the BA-330. And - well - if you want, you can deorbit it at any time. (in LEO at least).But, if you don't care about mass, or inflatability, or anything fancy, you can get shielded 300m^3 or so 6m internal diameter modules up for not much more than 3* launch cost of BFS, even without any on-orbit assembly.Buy 6m aluminium inch thick tank, don't tell them it's for aerospace, pressurise to 150PSI a few times to test it, add 1m of plastic water tanks to the outside (empty), glue on aluminium foil, fill in orbit, and you've got a pressurised shielded volume that you can outfit at your leisure.
Inflatables still allow much larger volumes, though. And BFR only makes them cheaper.For example, a single BFR launch could lift a 140 tonne, 100 meter deflated Kevlar sphere with 3 mm thick walls (5x safety factor) and a 10 tonne docking port/service/propulsion module. It would take 5 BFR flights of liquid air tanks to pressurize it to 1 atmosphere, but then you have a volume equal to 635 BFSes or 1600 BA-330s. Figuring out how to manufacture that sounds like a Bigelow specialty. It would take some outfitting to make that volume useful though, unless all you wanted was an orbital bouncy castle
Quote from: envy887 on 06/18/2018 01:24 pmInflatables still allow much larger volumes, though. And BFR only makes them cheaper.For example, a single BFR launch could lift a 140 tonne, 100 meter deflated Kevlar sphere with 3 mm thick walls (5x safety factor) and a 10 tonne docking port/service/propulsion module. It would take 5 BFR flights of liquid air tanks to pressurize it to 1 atmosphere, but then you have a volume equal to 635 BFSes or 1600 BA-330s. Figuring out how to manufacture that sounds like a Bigelow specialty. It would take some outfitting to make that volume useful though, unless all you wanted was an orbital bouncy castle I wholeheartedly agree that inflatables are in principle cheaper. But, if your inflatable pricing is not in fact cheaper than just using a BFS (and bigelow hasn't shown any enthusiasm for massive cheap stations), you have a significant illogicality.Even without inflatables, or on-orbit assembly, 8m diameter * 12m aluminium cylinders tested for several cycles of 140PSI is another obvious backstop to pricing, and it's reasonable to ask if bigelow modules will go anywhere.
Not heard anything from Bigelow for a long time now. I know they stopped development on BA330 because they were waiting for crew capsules to become commercially available. Now that this is imminent, I would have expected increased activity and announcements of launch of BA330 and/or XBase. Anyone know what is going on?
[snip].. per Bigelow's website, the B330 is now listed at 50,000 lb, which is too heavy for an Atlas V to throw into LEO. So they are waiting on Vulcan to become operational, which is ~2021. [snip]
Flexible launch options; compatible with Space Launch Systems (SLS) or five-meter fairing commercial launch vehicles.>Minimal mass and volume for efficient packaging in five-meter fairing on commercial launch vehicle.
What's the FH fairing size? I thought it was JUST short of 5M?
Quote from: Lar on 05/31/2019 03:46 pmWhat's the FH fairing size? I thought it was JUST short of 5M?I think it is 4.6 meters x 11 meters inside
4.6x6.4 narrowing linearly to 1.45m at the last 4.6m
Bogelows time may have come and gone, and requiring a Class 3 fairing doesn't help.Sierra Nevada's 300 m3 LIFE expandable, proposed for the Gateway hab, https://www.sncorp.com/what-we-do/space-exploration/QuoteFlexible launch options; compatible with Space Launch Systems (SLS) or five-meter fairing commercial launch vehicles.>Minimal mass and volume for efficient packaging in five-meter fairing on commercial launch vehicle.
Quote from: docmordrid on 05/30/2019 09:24 pmBogelows time may have come and gone, and requiring a Class 3 fairing doesn't help.Sierra Nevada's 300 m3 LIFE expandable, proposed for the Gateway hab, https://www.sncorp.com/what-we-do/space-exploration/QuoteFlexible launch options; compatible with Space Launch Systems (SLS) or five-meter fairing commercial launch vehicles.>Minimal mass and volume for efficient packaging in five-meter fairing on commercial launch vehicle.I don't see how SNC is further along than BA (especially in ECLSS since neither has anything built). Although you are right to point out the fairing size issue, however, if anything, the case can be made that the BA team has more experience than the SNC team. maybe I am being a bit naive, but I really want to see RB succeed.
So...there is a conversation nobody seems to be having much, which is the commercial financial support for passengers. We sort of assume that initial Bigelow habitats would be used for science, for crews riding Dragon or SS or Starliner, for example. But especially when you get into space hotel fantasies you wonder who will pay for it. Thing is, you actually might be able to, IF passengers rode on the same vehicle as a payload. If the flight for a comsat or other payload would happen anyway, then the passengers are effectively subsidized, at least for the trip. So how come we haven't seen rocket architectures for dual purpose cargo-and-humans? Starship could probably do it, and actually would have to for a Mars journey. So why not LEO as well?
Good point, but one commonality is GTO, and that raises the potential for human eyes in a specific place (YOUR place) as a use case. (Sort of like the old MOL, ha ha). Just thinking out loud....something like fire spotting or atmospherics that you would normally use NOAA or similar sats, but don't want or can't use those assets? Now, getting a B330 into GTO is a whole other matter...
Do you mean GTO or GEO? (GTO=geosynchronous transfer orbit, GEO=geosynchronous orbit)
Quote from: meberbs on 02/14/2020 07:08 pmDo you mean GTO or GEO? (GTO=geosynchronous transfer orbit, GEO=geosynchronous orbit) I did actually mean to say GEO. I know the difference, but I get distracted by the thought of comsats looking fine with three deuces and a 4-speed.
FWIW, in early 2020 I don't think there exists any possible combination of launch vehicle and crew vehicle that can even get to GEO, let alone carry enough propellant to return. Certainly there are paper rockets and paper capsules that can do it, but that has always been true since the 1960s.
Quote from: groundbound on 02/15/2020 03:14 amFWIW, in early 2020 I don't think there exists any possible combination of launch vehicle and crew vehicle that can even get to GEO, let alone carry enough propellant to return. Certainly there are paper rockets and paper capsules that can do it, but that has always been true since the 1960s. F9 second stage has demonstrated the coast capability to get there. I'm sure if you threw it and Dragon on top of a Falcon Heavy it could get there, but getting home might be more of a challenge, especially now that the Super Dracos are an "all or nothing" proposition.
Isn't Bigelow rather obsolete, now that NASA has replaced them by Axiom - for both, ISS tourism and the commercial space station? How should Bigelow compete with that?
My proposal on what Bigelow should be aiming for attached.
Will this level of interest be enough for Bigelow to launch a BA-330 as a destination for commercial missions?
