SpaceX to resume flight to ISS with inflatable space habitat

After being attached to the ISS, BEAM will be filled with air to expand it for a two-year test period in which ISS astronauts will conduct a series of tests to validate overall performance and capability of expandable habitats.

BEAM is 5.7 feet (1.7 meters) long and 7.75 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter when packed; 12 feet (3.7 meters) long and 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) in diameter when expanded, with 565 cubic feet (16 cubic meters) of interior volume.

Bigelow Aerospace is also developing a new inflatable module called B330, which is 20 times larger than BEAM, and hopes to put two B330s together in orbit into a private space station in 2020, Robert Bigelow, the company's president, told reporters.

"We are in the early phase of a new kind of spacecraft that offers a lot of promise," Bigelow said.

The cargo also included new experiments that will help investigators study muscle atrophy and bone loss in space, seek insight into the interactions of particle flows at the nanoscale level and use protein crystal growth in microgravity to help design new drugs.

SpaceX is one of two US companies that provide ISS cargo services for NASA. The other company is Orbital ATK, whose Cygnus capsule was launched to the ISS on March 22.