Astronauts aboard the ISS entered the station’s first inflatable habitat today. At 4:47AM ET this morning, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka opened the hatch to the expanded habitat and ventured inside to collect air samples and data from the various sensors embedded in the module. That data will ultimately tell NASA and Bigelow Aerospace — the habitat’s manufacturer — how well the module, called BEAM, is holding up in the space environment. But according to Williams, the air in the habitat looked “pristine,” albeit a bit cold.
via The Verge
Image: NASA
