Bigelow to support crew/cargo capsule development [Update]

I received the latest issue of Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine yesterday and it includes an article about Robert Bigelow and Bigelow Aerospace. I see that they have been nice enough to put the article on line: Mr. B’s Big Plan: Robert Bigelow has put two mini-space stations in orbit. Now comes the hard part..

The article is quite interesting, especially this part near the end:

So, rather than wait around for the launch industry to deliver, Bigelow is reluctantly entering the arena as a player. “I didn’t want to fight a two-front war,” he says. But, by the time this article is published, he expects to have announced his investment in a new space capsule. “We’re making a capital investment in the creation of a capsule for crew and cargo, one that will have a common interface that can be placed on a [Russian] Proton rocket, a human-rated Atlas, or possibly Musk’s Falcon 9,” he says. It will be a seven-person capsule, big enough to carry people to the large BA 330 stations. “We won’t be designing the capsule, but we’ll be very active investors,” he says.

The issue must have come out earlier than he expected, or plans have changed, since he has not made such an announcement yet.

[Update: Miscellaneous other items of interest in the article include:
/-- Genesis II system had to be rebooted once (sounds like it went into safe mode due) and a non-critical (unnamed) subsystem is off line. Otherwise, things are working fine on both spacecraft.
/-- Communications have been a challenge. Stations in Alaska and Hawaii have had some technical problems and downtime. A new ground station in Maine will provide full coverage over the US. Eventually they "plan to build or lease several more stations around the world".
/-- The long wait on the ground in Russia led to the demise of the bugs in the bioexperiment package
/-- Sundancer will go up in 2010. They will wait to launch the 7 person capable BA-330 until "reliable, affordable" space transport is available.
/-- Buying rights to Transhab IP and getting advice from Transhab team members still at NASA wasn't enough. William Schneider, who led the NASA project and had moved to Texas A&M University, was brought in as a consultant (he comes to Las Vegas every 2 weeks for a few days at a time) and has been a key factor in moving the technology to flight readiness.
/-- BA now owns a number of patents. Bigelow himself has one on the design of their shield against micrometeoriods and space debris.
/-- Sundancer design is almost finished.
]

Posted 11/29/07 | 09:12:19 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Space habitats

Comments

I think Bigelow's making a mistake going for his own capsule, especially if he expects it to be adaptable to so many different vehicles. Dragon is far further along than a capsule that hasn't even been designed yet, so he's probably wasting his money and might get trapped in pursuing it even when Dragon becomes available.

Posted by High Fructose, Low Self-Esteem at 11/29/07 16:43:01

The only way this makes sense to me is if he wants to see some redundant/competitive sourcing.

Posted by Daniel Schmelzer at 11/29/07 18:01:07

I fail to see the logic of his decision. Bigelow will be duplicating all of the development costs of Dragon for a product that barely differs from it, is behind it in development, and will likely be supported by less business. The likelihood of beating Dragon to market, let alone being cheaper when it does enter, is quite small.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 11/29/07 20:45:19

Mr. B states the Proton first, then mentions American launchers. No way this is a U.S. capsule....U.S. capsule on a Proton...can you say Export Control? Gotta be next-gen Soyuz, Kliper, or some other Russian/ESA innovation. Go Bigelow.

Posted by Van at 11/29/07 21:19:12

Perhaps Bigelow doesn't want to restrict himself to SpaceX for services and wants to ensure that he can fly on a number of vehicles with a number of companies/agencies. Seems like the only way you'll do that is to design your own capsule. After all, the more launch providers you have, the better your chances of fitting into someone's launch schedule quicker.

Posted by anon at 11/29/07 21:27:37

there are a number of options for bigelow. In particular, follow the cots ppl. My bet is on spacedev (and possibly spacex). It is designed to use something like the falcon 9, but can use the atlas or deltas. It has a service module that bigelow needs. spacedev has built a prototype ship already. All that is needed is for the final product. I would not be surprised to see bigelow hit BOTH spacedev and spacex with some money. The reason is that he may pay spacex to put the dragon on delta until spacex's rockets are ready. That way, spacex can have his first attempt within a year (assuming that a delta/atlas is ready). In fact, both spacedev and spacex could launch before end of 2008. While normally, musk would not be interested in this, it would give him quicker paying payloads as well. Afterall, he knows that he will be cheaper than delta/atlas via ULA.

Posted by g.r.r. at 11/30/07 07:17:06

Bigelow has already signed a MOU, memorandum of understanding, with ULA, the united launch alliance for manrating the delta 4 or the atlas 401 to launch a capsule or dream chaser. This was signed months ago aready so bigelow must be thinking musk isnt going to make it. Bigelow Aerospace 2-0
successes zero failures, SpaceX 0-2

Posted by Vladislaw at 12/07/07 22:52:45

Add Comment

Note: HTML code will not work except for bare URLs (i.e. http://www...). Also, for postings older than 1 week, comments are filtered manually to prevent spam and so may not appear for a few days.
Note: Trash talking and name calling, especially in anonymous comments, won't be tolerated.