NASA-Backed Burst Test Advances Orbital Reef Development

NASA-Backed Burst Test Advances Orbital Reef Development
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jul 29, 2024

A critical component of the Orbital Reef commercial space station, developed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space with NASA funding, has successfully completed a full-scale burst pressure test. This achievement marks significant progress in NASA's efforts to establish new low Earth orbit destinations.

This milestone comes under a NASA Space Act Agreement awarded to Blue Origin in 2021. The Orbital Reef project incorporates various elements, including Sierra Space's LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat structure.

The burst test, conducted at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, evaluated Sierra Space's LIFE habitat structure. The inflatable habitat, made from high-strength webbings and fabric, forms a robust structure when pressurized. Its multi-layered shell is designed to be compactly stowed during launch and inflated in orbit, allowing it to fit within a single rocket payload.

"This is an exciting test by Sierra Space for Orbital Reef, showing industry's commitment and capability to develop innovative technologies and solutions for future commercial destinations," said Angela Hart, manager of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Every successful development milestone by our partners is one more step to achieving our goal of enabling commercial low Earth orbit destinations and expanding the low Earth orbit marketplace."

The test involved pressurizing the habitat to its failure point, demonstrating its capabilities and providing essential data to support NASA's inflatable softgoods certification guidelines. These guidelines recommend a series of tests to assess the materials in operational environments and understand their failure modes.

Meeting the recommended safety factor through full-scale burst pressure testing is a crucial requirement for soft goods articles, such as the LIFE habitat, to achieve flight certification.

Prior to this test, Sierra Space conducted its first full-scale burst pressure test on the LIFE habitat at Marshall in December 2023. The company has also completed subscale tests at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and at Marshall, contributing to the ongoing development of inflatable habitation technology.

NASA continues to support the design and development of multiple commercial space stations, including Orbital Reef, through both funded and unfunded agreements. This design and development phase will be followed by the procurement of services from selected companies.