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The Potential for Health Monitoring in Expandable Space Modules: The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module on the ISS

2017; SAGE Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.12783/shm2017/13861

1741-3168

Nathan Wells, Eric I. Madaras,

Spaceflight effects on biology

Expandable modules for use in space and on the Moon or Mars offer a great opportunity for volume and mass savings in future space exploration missions.This type of module can be compressed into a relatively small shape on the ground, allowing them to fit into space vehicles with a smaller cargo/fairing size than a traditional solid, metallic structure based module would allow.In April 2016, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was berthed to the International Space Station (ISS).BEAM is the first human-rated expandable habitat/module to be deployed and crewed in space.BEAM is a NASA managed ISS payload project in partnership with Bigelow Aerospace.BEAM is intended to stay attached to ISS for an operational period of 2 years to help advance the technology readiness for future expandable modules.BEAM has been instrumented with a suite of space flight certified sensors systems which will help characterize the module's performance for thermal, radiation shielding and impact monitoring against potential Micro Meteoroid/Orbital Debris (MM/OD) providing fundamental information on the BEAM environment for potential health monitoring requirements and capabilities.This paper will provide an overview of how the sensors/instrumentation systems were developed, tested, installed and an overview of the current sensor system operations.It will also discuss how the MM/OD impact detection system referred to as the Distributed Impact Detection System (DIDS) data is being processed and reviewed on the ground by the principle investigators.