Sierra Space, a leader in commercial space technology, has reached a significant milestone in the development of the first commercial space station. The recent Ultimate Burst Pressure test of their full-scale LIFE™ structure at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center has exceeded NASA’s recommended safety levels by 27%. This article represents a major leap in the evolution of space habitats, as it will be one third the volume of the International Space Station and will play a crucial role in the future of commercial space travel.
The successful test has demonstrated the capabilities of this revolutionary technology, showcasing its potential for future commercial space destinations. Sierra Space is committed to pushing the boundaries of space exploration and is dedicated to making a positive impact on Earth. Their focus is not just on leaving the planet, but on leveraging space technology to benefit the entire world. From finding cures for diseases to advancing energy and computing power, the implications of this achievement are vast and far-reaching.
For more updates and information, you can connect with Sierra Space on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This is an exciting time for the future of space exploration, and Sierra Space is at the forefront of these groundbreaking developments.
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Video Transcript
We were just here at Marshall space flight center just about a 100 days ago doing our last most recent subscale burst test that one had a blanking plate integrated into it and on this one now we have two blanking plates integrated our team has moved incredibly quickly to
Iterate on this design make improvements and build a fullscale article this work is really important because we’re changing how we’re able to put habitats in space for example life will achieve 1/3 of the volume of the ISS in one launch where that previously took 10 to 15 launches to achieve that same volume
And we believe that having the ability to build space stations together with our space transportation systems and bring those together into an ecosystem allows us to find things that we can’t discover on Earth we think about creating an end to end solution that will enable the orbital age we think
About every Industrial Revolution that’s come before us has really positioned as for now for this new age sofas have a previous track record in low orbit actually they had put up a inflatable airlock following that there was two prototype modules uh called Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 shortly after that the
Bigo expandable activities module so we’re trying to continue that Trend with Sierra space the ability for Sierra space and ilc over to place a blanking plate with inside this soft good shell is the next Generation technology those blanking plates aren’t just for Windows we can place on there antennas we can
Put another air lock on there we can have radiator solar rays robotics we are going to demonstrate to the world that Sierra space is the leader in soft goods habitation the full scale unit behind me here is really comprised of two main components we have our metallic ground
Support equipment and then the soft goods the core is 18t tall and the diameter is 27 ft and we do what we refer to as sleeving and that sleeving is where you uh basically drop the the soft goods over the top of the core today feels a lot like the culmination
Of all the subscale tests that we’ve done really leading to this full scale test so our ultimate burst pressure test day is really about two things one it’s about verifying the success that we had on our subscale test efforts so we far exceeded the NASA safety and certification requirements with those
Subscale tests and so now it’s really about extrapolating those to this full scale test and verifying that those results are repeatable now we have learned a lot in terms of how to architect the material how to weave the material how to build the material at the different layers of the material how
To think about all of that so that when we actually get it in space it’s harder than still has much more in terms of durability and the greatest invention is Windows and softare structures the teams have worked extremely closely not just to engineer something as unique as what
You see behind us but we continually learn how to mass produce so that as this becomes more and more of a viable technology we can be first to Market and make sure that we can deploy this type of Technology across multiple applications it’s the technology that’s represented behind us that’s going to
Allow us for the first time not just to think about what to put in space we can now think about what we’re going to produce in space to benefit life on Earth between blue origin and Sierra space we have got some of the best people in the industry so I’m excited to
See the life habitat make it to space make it to orbital reef and uh just the capability of having such a large habitat in space enables living in space in a way that we’ve never been able to before the whole idea is that we’re going to grab our inflatable life and
Just take it to the max see what kind of PSI we’re going to get to we’re hoping that it is somewhere in the 60 PSI bursting is so important because the data we achieve from this burst test and subsequent burst test will allow us to refine our design for Life 1.0 2.0 3.0
And Beyond and you guys clear 45 PSI 50 psi 50 psi 55 PSI 55 PS 6 W on the way to burst go SI space go NASA trying to go down and pressure so maybe it’s a leak t Circle and it’s trying to overcome it we dring just as
Fast we were filling it we didn’t burst there was a little bit of an issue that we’re taking a look at there’s some type of leak rate or leak that’s happening in the article we’re going to go out there and do a postmortem review it looks like
There was a valve failure on our 6-in vent valve so good news the article can still be tested and we’re going to go down and close those valves fix it Beth and the team along with NASA will come up with a mitigation process and we’ll move forward we had a really successful test
Although we did not burst our article we did surpass the factor of safety threshold recommended by NASA today we’re going to be back in the control room for part two of the test while we did surpass our threshold yesterday we still want to burst our test article to
Really see how much margin we have 55 PSI 55 PSI 63 PSI 63 PSI 70 PSI 70 PSI that my number 75 PSI 75 PSI W we’re not a company that’s trying to escape Earth We’re not a company that thinks that we ought to leave the planet we’re a company that’s committed to this home and making it better ultimately uh our focus is to benefit 8 billion people we believe we will help find cures to
The world’s hardest problem find cures to leukemia and other kinds of cancers think about longevity in ways we could never have thought about next generation of energy next generation of computing power it will change Everything
Video “Full-Scale LIFE™ Inflatable Space Station Burst Test at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center” was uploaded on 01/22/2024 to Youtube Channel Sierra Space