Bigelow Aerospace updates: thread 2

[DocM]

Starting to look a little chunky at the hatch end.

GO for inflation. 

[Blue-Vision]

Sounding a little edgy at Mission Control ... they sure are conservative there, aren't they?

[DocM]

Yup.

 

Opening the valve 5 sec at a time. Starting to lengthen. 

[Blue-Vision]

Bwahaha ... Williams looks completely nonplussed ... bored, even. "Come on, you weenies. I understand caution, but this is completely ridiculous" is his expression.  Give 'er six inches of inflation and hold, sheesh. NASA ... ugh. Painfully, maddeningly slow bunch.

[DocM]

They're careful because Genesis unexpectedly popped open in .25 seconds. Don't want more surprises.

[Blue-Vision]

I certainly hope the slight pressure drops between 4.9's are due to expansion .. 

[DocM]

Slightly high on pressure curve. Waiting for it to settle.

[Blue-Vision]

Yeah, hope it works out okay. Gotta dash, will check in later.  

[DocM]

Expansion slow and they're trying to give it time keep to the pressure within the curve.

[DocM]

They just said The bang Jeff heard was a shear pin & expected by ground.

17 min video drop coming up.

[DocM]

Back to the multimeter. Rechecking the pyros & waiting on the engineering team.

[anthdci]

Slow process, but not worth risking doing it quickly. It's not like there is a time limit. 

[DocM]

More air coming up.

[DocM]

3 sec air. 

 

Pressures being called out are mm/Hg

 

 

[DocM]

Another "generous 1 sec" of air.

 

Now just over 0.4 psi.

[DocM]

+1 more second. 0.458 psi

[DocM]

Standing down for today. Capping sample port. Redo tomorrow.

[Beittil]

Aaaaaand they're done for the day... back to the drawing table so to say

[Jim K Global Moderator]

That's kind of a bummer.  Hope they can eventually get it expanded.

 

Did they forget to pack the backup manual expander?

Sometimes gotta keep it simple.

 

[Blue-Vision]

Urrrgh.  

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Hopefully, better luck tomorrow. There was a slight expansion outwards and radially, but not enough till pressure curve exceeded.

From what I have read, bladders between the "folds" are being inflated for initial expansion. She has been folded and stored for over a year, may just need a tap.

One would think that there is also a direct porting for air into the main chamber as well. But like Doc had mentioned, it could expand violently and cause issues with the ISS seal.

 

/s    As long as it expands into a hab and not this...

 

 

just in...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[flyingskippy]

I wasn't able to watch the coverage of BEAM.  Is the problem that it didn't expand enough for the amount of air released or that they released all the air and it didn't expand fully? 

[+John. Subscriber¹]

Just now, flyingskippy said:

I wasn't able to watch the coverage of BEAM.  Is the problem that it didn't expand enough for the amount of air released or that they released all the air and it didn't expand fully? 

Long story short is it didn't do much of anything. Didn't budge anywhere near what they were expecting it to do. Pressures were higher than expected and amount of expansion was much less than expected also. 

[DocM]

They were being over cautious, only applying about .45 psi of pressure because the Genesis 1 & 2 subscale orbital  testbeds expanded in less than 0.25 second. Too big a risk of damage if a larger structure popped that fast. 

 

The last I heard, they were talking about depressurizibg it and possibly trying to loosen the straps.

 

As for why: this thing has been in packed mode for over a year, delayed by the CRS-7 failure and other things. It's possible some stiction has developed between the straps and structure.

[flyingskippy]

Are they talking an EVA then to loosen the straps?