Commercial space station Bigelow Aerospace has started qualifying its Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) in preparation for the 2015 launch of its three-person Sundancer module. When completed, the process will have demonstrated the ECLSS's ability to safely support a crew of three in orbit for an extended period of time.

Eight-hour-long tests are being conducted in Madison, Wis., at the facilities of Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITEC). Earlier long-term testing has already taken place using human "metabolic simulators" – machines -- while the current tests will include real human beings. The first volunteers are Bigelow's program manager and former NASA astronaut, Bill Oefelein, and chief systems engineer, Eric Haakonstad. Future tests will include more Bigelow Aerospace and ORBITECH engineers, and be of longer duration as testing procedures are refined.

Specific systems integrated for the initial tests include thermal and humidity control, ventilation, carbon dioxide removal, trace contaminant removal, atmospheric monitoring, and vehicle thermal control. Additional systems will be added as they become available.

The testing currently being conducted is to assure human safety of the ECLSS hardware before it goes into larger operational training mockups at Bigelow's facilities in Las Vegas. The larger, full-scale closed-volume ground mockups will be used to work out and demonstrate basic operation, maintenance and repair of ECLSS systems and be used as training aides with its customers in the future.

Anchor/building block of Bigelow's first commercial space station in low earth orbit (LEO), Sundancer is an expandable module around 29 feet long, 20.6 feet in diameter, and has an internal volume of about 180 cubic meters. Two Sundancer modules will be linked together in initial construction and each module contains its own ECLSS to support up to three crews.

To finish the station, Bigelow will add a larger BA-330 modules to support up to six in-orbit crews on a long-term basis. With a diameter of 22 feet, the BA-330 has 330 cubic meters of volume, almost double that of Sundancer, and each BA-330 will also have its own independent ECLSS.

Bigelow already has eyes to move beyond LEO. Founder Robert Bigelow has discussed plans for habitation modules on the Moon and Mars, with a private lunar base made up of three BA-330s to support up to 18 astronauts. In addition, an orbital station would be parked at the Lagrange 1 gravitation balance point between the Earth and the move to receive supplies from Earth.