founded 1999 1 founder robert bigelow founder and president headquarters north las vegas nevada united states products orbital facilities commercial space stations number of employees 130 may 2014 website bigelowaerospace.com bigelow aerospace is an american space technology startup company based in north las vegas nevada that manufactures and develops expandable space station modules . bigelow aerospace was founded by robert bigelow in 1998 2 and is funded in large part by the profit bigelow gained through his ownership of the hotel chain budget suites of america . by 2013 bigelow had invested us 250 million in the company . 3 bigelow has stated on multiple occasions that he is prepared to fund bigelow aerospace with about us 500 million through 2015 in order to achieve launch of full scale hardware . 2 4 bigelow aerospace has stated they intend to create a modular set of space habitats for creating or expanding space stations . 5 many journalists have commented that bigelow is taking risks by trying to compete in a capital intensive highly regulated industry like spaceflight . 5 contents 1 history 2 module design and business plans 2.1 expandable module design overview 2.2 business plans 3 module construction and deployment timeline 3.1 expandable habitat modules 3.1.1 genesis i 3.1.2 genesis ii 3.1.3 sundancer 3.1.4 bigelow expandable activity module for the iss 3.1.5 b330 3.1.6 ba 2100 concept module 3.2 delays in launch capability 4 bigelow commercial space station 5 crew and passenger transport 6 aspirations beyond earth orbit 7 honors 8 see also 9 references 10 external links history edit nasa s design for the now canceled transhab module bigelow originally licensed the multi layer expandable space module technology from nasa in 2000 after congress canceled the international space station iss transhab project following delays and budget constraints in the late 1990s . 2 6 7 bigelow has three space act agreements whereby bigelow aerospace is the sole commercializer of several of nasa s key expandable module technologies . citation needed bigelow continued to develop the technology for a decade redesigning the module fabric layers including adding proprietary extensions of vectran shield fabric a double strength variant of kevlar and developing a family of uncrewed and crewed expandable spacecraft in a variety of sizes . 8 bigelow invested us 75 million in proprietary extensions to the nasa technology by mid 2006 1 and 180 million into the technology by 2010 . 9 by 2010 robert bigelow had invested us 180 million in the company 9 which by 2013 had grown to us 250 million of his personal fortune . 3 bigelow stated on multiple occasions that he was prepared to fund bigelow aerospace with up to about us 500 million through 2015 in order to achieve launch of full scale hardware . 2 4 in early 2010 nasa came full circle to once again investigate making inflatable space station modules to make roomier lighter cheaper to launch spacecraft by announcing plans in its budget proposal released february 22 2010 . nasa considered connecting a bigelow expandable craft to the iss for safety life support radiation shielding thermal control and communications verification testing for the next three years 8 and in december 2012 signed a 17.8 million contract with bigelow to develop the bigelow expandable activity module beam 10 then projected to fly in 2015 . 11 since early on bigelow has been intent on pursuing markets for a variety of users including biotech and pharmaceutical companies and university research entertainment applications and government military and civil users . the business model includes leasing out small space stations or habitats made of one or more ba 330 inflatable modules to different research communities or corporations . . 2 despite these broad plans for space commercialization the space tourism destination and space hotel monikers were frequently used by many media outlets following the 2006 2007 launches of genesis i and genesis ii . robert bigelow has been explicit that he is aiming to do business in space in a new way with low cost and rapid turnaround contrary to traditional nasa iss and space shuttle operations and bureaucracy . 2 in october 2010 bigelow announced that it had agreements with six sovereign nations to utilize on orbit facilities of the commercial space station united kingdom netherlands australia singapore japan and sweden . 12 in february 2011 dubai of the united arab emirates became the seventh nation to have signed on . 13 needs update in 2011 bigelow employed an in house team of model makers coming from the film and architecture industries to make detailed models of their space habitats and space stations . scale models were sent to potential customers including governments and corporations as a reminder of the possibilities . 14 reportedly due to delays in launch capability to transport humans to low earth orbit bigelow dramatically reduced staff in late september 2011 because crew transportation would become available years after the first ba 330 could be ready 15 laying off 40 of their 90 employees . 16 in late march 2012 bigelow began increasing staff levels once again . 17 by april 2013 bigelow was saying that they would have ba 330 modules ready to go to space by the time that commercial passenger spacecraft were available to ferry their customers to the dual ba330 alpha space station expected in 2017 and that bigelow is ready to enter into contracts with customers now . 18 needs update further staff reductions occurred at the start of 2016 estimated by industry sources to be between 30 and 50 people of 150 employed at the time of the layoffs . this came after the company advertised more than 100 jobs in 2015 at both its north las vegas headquarters and its newly established propulsion department in huntsville alabama . 16 as part of its reduction in workforce the company closed the huntsville facility . 19 module design and business plans edit a full scale mockup of bigelow aerospace s space station alpha inside their facility in nevada . expandable module design overview edit nasa deputy administrator lori garver views the inside of a full scale mockup of bigelow aerospace s space station alpha . bigelow aerospace anticipates that its inflatable modules will be more durable than rigid modules . 20 this is partially due to the company s use of several layers of vectran a material twice as strong as kevlar and also because in theory flexible walls should be able to sustain micrometeoroid impacts better than rigid walls . in ground based testing micrometeoroids capable of puncturing standard iss module materials penetrated only about halfway through the bigelow skin . operations director mike gold commented that bigelow modules also wouldn t suffer from the same local shattering problems likely with metallic modules . this could provide as much as 24 hours to remedy punctures in comparison to the more serious results of standard iss skin micrometeoroid damage . 8 expected uses for bigelow aerospace s expandable modules include microgravity research and development and space manufacturing . other potential uses include variable gravity research for gravity gradients above microgravity including moon 0.16 g and mars 0.38 g gravity research ; 21 space tourism such as modules for orbital hotels ; and space transportation such as components in spaceships for moon or mars manned missions . citation needed business plans edit as of october 2015 update the bigelow aerospace website shows several pricing schemes including 51.25 million for 60 days on a ba 330 space station . that price covers everything including transport training and consumables . for 25 million bigelow aerospace customers can lease a third of a b330 habitat roughly 110 cubic meters for a period of 60 days . 22 in 2010 bigelow proposed conceptual designs for expandable habitats that would be substantially larger than the ba 330 previously its largest at 330 cubic meters 11 700 cu ft habitat volume . contingent on nasa going forward with a super heavy lifter the proposed concept would include expandable habitats offering 2 100 cubic meters 74 000 cu ft of volume nearly twice the capacity available on the international space station and another providing 3 240 cubic meters 114 400 cu ft . 23 in 2010 bigelow aerospace began building a large production facility in north las vegas nevada to produce the space modules . the 181 000 square feet 16 800 m2 facility will include three production lines for three distinct spacecraft doubling the amount of floor space at bigelow and transitioning the focus from research and development with an existing workforce of 115 to production . bigelow expected to hire approximately 1 200 new employees to staff the plant with production commencing in early 2012 . 24 25 in 2013 during execution of the contract to build the bigelow expandable activity module for the international space station 26 robert bigelow indicated that his company manufactures about 50 percent of product content in house while subcontracting out the remainder . 27 in march 2013 bigelow signed an agreement with nasa to act as the central link between nasa and dozens of private companies that want to play a role in the creation of a new economy a space economy including proposals far more complex than mere space tourism research manufacturing medicine and agriculture . the agreement calls for bigelow to liaise between nasa and the private sector to see how the u.s. government and industry could help each other . 28 the first deliverable on that contract a report which identifies companies that want to be a part of this effort as well as potential customers was delivered by bigelow to nasa in may 2013 . 28 module construction and deployment timeline edit on july 12 2006 and june 28 2007 bigelow launched the genesis i and ii modules respectively . in mid 2008 bigelow aerospace completed the galaxy module but did not launch it due to rising launch costs and the ability to substantially validate the new galaxy technologies terrestrially particularly after the successful two genesis launches in 2006 and 2007 . 29 30 it was tested on the ground at its north las vegas facility instead . as of 2014 bigelow had reserved a 2015 launch on spacex s falcon 9 rocket 31 but did not announce the payload . the falcon 9 would have been capable of launching a sundancer module but not a ba 330 module . bigelow also talked with lockheed martin regarding potential launches on the atlas v 401 rocket . 32 33 no launch took place in 2015 although in april 2016 bigelow aerospace remained on spacex s list of future launch customers . 34 on april 8 2016 the spacex crs 8 mission launched beam to the iss ; on april 11 2016 bigelow and united launch alliance announced that an atlas v 552 rocket had been booked for a flight in 2020 to deliver a b330 habitat to low earth orbit . 35 note dates of upcoming launches are proposed and are subject to change . cancelled projects are in italics . module type module names volume flight date launch vehicle status genesis pathfinder genesis i 11.5 m3 410 cu ft 36 july 12 2006 14 53 utc dnepr launch successful on orbit 37 genesis pathfinder genesis ii 11.5 m3 410 cu ft 36 june 28 2007 15 02 utc dnepr launch successful on orbit 38 galaxy galaxy 16.7 m3 590 cu ft cancelled n a launch cancelled tests on ground 30 sundancer unknown 180 m3 6 400 cu ft cancelled unknown launch cancelled replaced by ba 330 39 beam bigelow expandable activity module beam 40 16 m3 565 cu ft 41 april 8 2016 20 43 utc spacex dragon built under a 17.8 million nasa contract . 42 ba 330 nautilus 330 m3 11 700 cu ft 2020 35 unknown in design ; mockup built by 2015 ; public goal was to have two completed and ready to launch