NASA astronaut enters space station's inflatable room for 1st time

U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams successfully entered the first inflatable room on the International Space Station on Monday for the first time, the U.S. space agency NASA said.

NASA said in a blog post that Williams opened the hatch to the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) at 4:47 a.m. EDT (0847 GMT) and went inside along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka.

"Williams told flight controllers at Mission Control, Houston that BEAM looked 'pristine' and said it was cold inside, but that there was no evidence of any condensation on its inner surfaces," it said.

During his stay inside the inflatable room, Williams collected an air sample and downloaded data from sensors on the dynamics of BEAM's expansion on May 28, when he filled it with air during more than seven hours of operations.

Williams will install sensors over the following two days that will be used for the project' s primary task of gathering data on how an expandable habitat performs in the thermal environment of space, and how it reacts to radiation, micrometeoroids, and orbital debris.

The BEAM was launched on April 8 aboard a commercial cargo spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and was attached to the International Space Station' s Tranquility module about a week later. It's designed to remain on the station for at least two years. Endit