Bigelow Kicks Off Marketing Campaign for Private Space Stations

Exterior view of Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis II space station prototype in orbit.

Bigelow Marketing Inflatable Space Stations
Aviation Week

Bigelow Aerospace is kicking off a marketing campaign to attract national space agencies and corporations to its privately funded inflatable space station….

Bigelow founded the company in 1999, and in 2004 acquired the license for the TransHab inflatable habitat technology from NASA. Bigelow’s first test craft, Genesis 1, was launched in 2006 aboard a converted Dnepr SS-18. Two test vehicles are now in orbit.

Bigelow is developing two commercial habitats: the 180-cubic-meter Sundancer and the larger BA 330. The company intends to launch a Sundancer in 2014 to test its capabilities. Provided the testing phase goes well, a second Sundancer and a docking node bus will be deployed by 2015, followed by a 330, says Michael Gold, the company’s chief counsel and head of its Washington operations.

Bigelow sees his customers coming from two large buckets: the 50-60 nations that do not have the wherewithal to support an indigenous space program, and corporations. “A lot of countries have astronauts, but what they don’t have is much opportunity for those astronauts to fly,” he says.

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