Missions to space could soon be carrying giant inflatables with them as extra accommodation ready to deploy in orbit. Space startup, Max Space, is developing the “high quality, high volume” expandable “space habitats” to address the fundamental problem facing humans as they cross space frontiers – a lack of liveable room.
20m3 version for launch in 2026
Funded by a range of private investors, the founders of the startup are two veteran entrepreneurs boasting over 40 years of work in the space industry, including 25 years of similar projects with NASA. The units they have been working on are “tightly packed” for transport and inflate to become rigid, high spec habitats once they reach low Earth orbit.
The company has already developed a 20m3 version which is booked for launch via a SpaceX rideshare in 2026, and is set to create 100m3 and 1000m3 incarnations by 2030.
100-fold improvement in costs
Being both lightweight and small in transit, they solve one of the greatest challenges for those building space stations and similar: the sheer cost of getting the infrastructure into space. For reference, Max Space notes, the 1000m3 International Space Station took over 60 launches to put in place at a cost of over $100 billion.
Max Space claim they can get the same volume of livable or storage space into orbit on just a single flight of the Space X Falcon 9, at a “100-fold improvement in cost per cubic meter”.
Scalability to farm, factory, hotel or warehouse size
Another unique selling point of the space inflatables is their scalability, which the company says could allow for 10,000m3 volumes, or “stadium-sized” habitats, and which will require the new Starship or New Glenn to be online in order to be transported. The range of uses suggested by Max Space is seemingly as vast as the structures themselves. From entertainment and hospitality spaces, to farming, laboratories or pharmaceutical production, or logistics and warehousing, to name a few, Max Space says their modules will “allow humans to live and work in space in ways never before possible.”
The idea of an inflatable withstanding the forces and potential debris impacts in space is extraordinary, but their strength is down to the use of isotensoid architecture, in which the structural fibres can adapt to the ideal geometry for maximum load-bearing. They also have multi-layered fibre-based ballistic shielding, which the manufacturers say in a press release, is “more resilient than titanium or aluminium”.
Shambhu Kumar is a science communicator, making complex scientific topics accessible to all. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
