Nasa puts inflatable moon habitat to burst test. Watch what happens next

India Today

29-04-2025

Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center and Lockheed Martin Space have achieved a major milestone in the development of inflatable deep space habitats, successfully completing a long-duration creep test that pushed the technology to its limits.The test, conducted at Nasa Marshall, subjected a prototype inflatable habitat to sustained internal pressure for over 1,000 hours before it ultimately burst-far exceeding the planned 100-hour duration and demonstrating the robustness of the design.advertisementCreep tests are critical for evaluating how materials deform under constant stress over time, simulating the harsh conditions these habitats would face during long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, or beyond.
The test unit, constructed from Vectran, a material five times stronger than steel and ten times stronger than aluminum, was pressurized to a significant fraction of its ultimate burst pressure and monitored continuously.The result: the habitat withstood more than ten times the expected mission duration before failure, providing engineers with valuable data on its long-term performance and safety margins.This accomplishment marks a significant step forward for inflatable habitat technology, which offers substantial advantages over traditional rigid modules. Inflatable habitats can be packed compactly for launch and then expanded in space, providing astronauts with much larger living and working spaces without the mass penalty of rigid structures.advertisementThe success of the creep test not only validates the material and manufacturing approaches but also boosts confidence in the technology's readiness for future crewed missions.Lockheed Martin and Nasa engineers will now analyse the data to refine their designs further, with the goal of enabling sustainable human presence on the Moon and Mars.