Second inflatable spacecraft launched

Bigelow Aerospace has launched its second inflatable space module, Genesis 2. The Genesis 2 module launched from Russia's Yasny Cosmodrome atop a Dnepr launch rocket. Genesis 2 is about 2.5 metres wide and uses essentially the same physical design as its predecessor, Genesis 1, which launched into space on 12 July 2006 and is still in orbit. But Genesis 2 includes extra instruments that will monitor the craft's vital signs and 22 cameras – nine more than flew on Genesis 1. Some of the cameras will take pictures of photographs and other items people paid to send into space aboard the module in a programme called "Fly Your Stuff". The craft also holds a box of animals including cockroaches and scorpions and a machine that will select balls for Bingo games to be webcast on BigelowAerospace.com. All of this activity and testing is leading up to a module called Sundancer, to launch in 2010, which would be three times the diameter of the Genesis modules and is designed to be able to support a crew of three. In 2012, it hopes to launch a module called the BA 330 that would dock with Sundancer.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post