HOUSTON — Life orbiting the moon could feature an Astro Garden, three floors and a gym inside an inflatable Gateway concept.
The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) opened its inflated space habitat prototype to the media Tuesday in Colorado. SNC’s 27-foot-wide prototype named Large Inflatable Fabric Environment (LIFE) habitat is one of four prototypes being made by five companies for NASA.
SNC’s lunar Gateway is part of NASA’s vision for the future of space. It’s an outpost NASA is developing to orbit the moon. The Gateway would facilitate human moon landing missions and deep space exploration, like a mission to Mars. The Gateway is also envisioned as a habitat, a science laboratory and a staging point for deep space exploration missions.
LIFE is built to sustain four astronauts and consists of three floors outfitted with everything a crew of four astronauts would need to live in space and perform science missions. The company said that includes labs, robotics work stations, medical and sick pay, sleep and hygiene quarters, galley, exercise equipment, SNC’s Astro Garden plant growth system and ample storage room for crew supplies. The prototype featured Tuesday only has two floors, because the bottom floor of the real LIFE habitat will be upside down on orbit.
NASA said over the next several months, the space agency will conduct a series of ground tests inside five uniquely designed, full-size, deep space habitat prototypes. Northrop Gruuman’s prototype is already housed at Johnson Space Center for testing and SNC’s LIFE habitat will be sent to Houston soon.
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