Lockheed Martin Bursts Inflatable Space Habitats In Tests

Space.com

Lockheed Martin is developing inflatable habitats for use in space. Watch several views of a habitat prototype being inflated past its limit.  Credit: Lockheed Martin

Transcript

00:00 [ Music ]

00:05 >> The test that we're doing today is an ultimate burst

00:08 pressure test of our subscale soft goods habitat.

00:10 What we're trying to really understand is can we fill it

00:14 up with as much pressure as possible

00:15 and see what the ultimate breaking strength

00:17 of the entire system is going to be.

00:19 [ Explosion ]

00:23 >> Flammable habitats have an incredible usage anywhere you

00:26 want to put people.

00:27 So anywhere there's a livable volume that you want

00:29 to have people living or storing materials long term.

00:32 >> Our burst units as well as the rest

00:35 of our soft goods technology are all designed, manufactured,

00:39 built and tested here on site at Lockheed Martin.

00:41 >> This test is almost an exact replica of the first test we did.

00:45 It's the same build, different unit,

00:47 but we're taking it to the same operating conditions

00:49 and then bursting it and seeing how they compare.

00:52 >> When you're looking at metallic habitats

00:54 versus inflatable habitats, one of the key drivers is our ability

00:58 to actually pack down our inflatable habitat

01:01 to a much smaller shape and size.

01:03 The advantage of this is

01:04 that you can actually fit a much larger habitable volume inside

01:07 of a launch vehicle without having

01:09 to have a launch vehicle that's massive.

01:11 >> The Vectran material is a very similar material to Kevlar,

01:14 which a lot of people are familiar with.

01:15 It is better in terms of its creep resistance,

01:18 which is the strain over time that can cause failure.

01:21 >> So this test is just one step in an entire certification process

01:26 to allow our habitat to be used in space

01:28 and be lived in by astronauts.

01:29 So what comes next in this process includes a full-scale

01:32 burst test, so scaling this up and bursting it

01:35 at the full scale that it'll be flown at

01:36 so that we can get an estimate of the lifetime

01:38 of the habitat before we send it to space.

01:40 The best part of this was that we ended up right

01:45 within our predicted pressure range, which is super exciting

01:47 for us, helps us continue to show that repeatability

01:50 of our processes, the repeatability of our testing.

01:52 So really excited about this result.

01:55 [ Explosion ]

02:01 Just seeing that burst within that range was a good feeling.

02:04 [ Music ]

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended