Engineering Next-Generation Expandable Habitats for Living in Space

The International Space Station cost more than $100 Billion to build and took 60 launches to complete. Yet, it has only 900 cubic meters of usable space. If we are to live and work in space, conduct meaningful research, and use our imaginations for sports and entertainment — we will need a lot more usable space in space. What if we could create stronger, scalable and more resilient space stations for a small fraction percent of this cost?

Max Space was created with the sole purpose of maximizing the amount of habitable volume that you can unpack once launched and deployed into space. The company’s design creates adaptable, expandable habitats that are considerably less expensive, have more volume, and are easier to get into space. Leveraging 25 years of cutting-edge expandable space architecture development by Thin Red Line Aerospace, Max Space offers scalable space modules for in-space habitation, manufacturing, research labs, farms, tourism, sports, and entertainment.

So Why Now?

Just as we have entered a magical age of more affordable flights to space, we find ourselves with nowhere to conduct business in orbit, grow our food, conduct important research in zero gravity, or have economical orbital storage modules or bases from which we can explore planets, including Mars and other destinations in space. In a little more than four or five years, the ISS will be decommissioned and there will be tremendous market demand for commercial, government, and military space stations.

Max Space’s expandables have been exhaustively tested for optimum safety factors, operational efficiency and predictability, and a paradigm shift in cost reduction. They are tightly packaged for launch and inflate upon reaching low-Earth Orbit (LEO), cislunar, Moon, Mars, and beyond, and are innovatively designed with the sole purpose of maximizing the amount of pressurized volume. These expandables are safer and stronger than traditional rigid modules due to the architecture consisting of a multi-layered system of fiber-based ballistic shielding of much greater resilience than aluminum and titanium counterparts.

A Different Design Approach

Max Space was founded by Aaron Kemmer and Maxim de Jong. Aaron co-founded and served as CEO of Made In Space — the first in-space manufacturing company, which later transitioned to Redwire Space. Maxim is the founder of Thin Red Line Aerospace, and widely recognized as visionary in design, engineering, and manufacture of space expandable architecture. Besides the expandable habitation technology now being commercialized by Max space, Maxim’s participation in dozens of NASA programs has focused on space habitats and airlocks, heat shields for planetary entry, descent and landing, and a wide range of technologies for solar system exploration.

Max Space expandables use a dramatically different design approach and philosophy than other expandable and inflatable systems that are currently in development. The expandables incorporate “isotensoid” architecture whereby every structural fiber element remains unencumbered and free to assume an ideal geometry for optimum load-bearing capability.

The benefits of this design are enormous, ranging from lowest possible mass and cost to unsurpassed predictability and unlimited scalability. Predictable scalability to the enormous dimensions needed for off-planet operations and human survivability is repeatedly found to be a holy grail in expandable space architecture development. Module technology breaks this barrier by allowing small scale versions to be tested for flight qualification of vastly larger counterparts.

The other key advantage is that the scalable technology developed by Thin Red Line has been tested and accurately characterized in almost 20 years of in-house development, as well as throughout several key NASA programs. This same design and production facility is furthermore unique in having the heritage of having successfully flown the first, and only free-flying expandable/inflatable habitat demo missions: The Genesis 1 and 2 spacecraft, still on orbit, have sustained the space environment for almost 18 years, not to mention the team’s significant design contribution to the BEAM module, currently on the ISS.

Leveraging the prior work and, the Max Space 20, a full-fidelity 20 m³ ground test unit and several full-fidelity sub-scale counterparts, are built and currently undergoing the requisite array of tests moving towards flight qualification: burst testing, vibe testing, geometry verification and validation (V&V), pressure decay, proof pressure testing, and rapid deployment testing. The Max Space 20 design architecture will lay the in-space validation groundwork for the technology that will scale into vastly larger habitats. These next-generation modules will be designed to integrate and work together as modular building blocks, as well as with current and future space stations, including commercial LEO destination providers.

On the Horizon

The Max Space 20 is already booked for launch in 2026 aboard a SpaceX Falcon vehicle. The goal is to have a family of scalable habitats in space, ranging from 20 to 100 to 1000 cubic meters in close succession. The Max Space expandable architecture’s scalability has the potential to scale up to 10,000+ m³ or “stadium-sized” habitats which can be singularly launched using Starship and New Glenn once they’re online.

If we were to live and work in space, it’s essential to change the paradigm of affordable habitats in space and economically accommodate venues ranging from science to farming to entertainment and government applications. Expandable modules have the potential to pave the way for humankind’s off-planet existence, whether on the Moon, Mars, or beyond.

This article was written by Aaron Kemmer and Maxim de Jong, Co-Founders, Max Space (Colorado Springs, CO). For more information, visit here  .

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