A one-year, $2.5 million NASA-funded research project on elastomers and other materials for inflatable space structures is expected to begin at US company ILC Dover at the end of April.
The elastomer would form the bladder that would use air from a spacecraft's life support system to inflate and maintain a habitat or airlock's shape. Inflatable technology would enable very large structures to be packed within a rocket's fairing at one-tenth to one-hundredth their inflated size. The elastomer would be the core of the structure that would use layers of self-healing and heat and gas retaining fabrics, which are also to be researched. "The material would have extremely low permeability and act like a metal container. Nanotechnology will enable us to make a gas molecule's path [to escape the structure] much more circuitous," says David Codagon, ILC Dover's research and development manager.
He adds that a monitoring system developed for the US Navy that detects the location of a hole in a fabric will be used in conjunction with self-healing systems.
ROB COPPINGER/COLORADO SPRINGS
Source: Flight International