Space Station but more spacious & pretty; MIT expert shares thrilling space habitat idea

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are forced to live in congested spaces where they spend missions extending to several months. In those close quarters, the astronauts are surrounded by exposed wiring and bulky electronics which further reduces the accessible area. To make in-orbit accommodations more spacious, liveable and also pretty to look at,  Ariel Ekblaw, an expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has flagged the idea of project TESSERAE. 

What is the project TESSERAE?

Short for Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable, Adaptive Environments, TESSERAE is Ekblaw’s brainchild which is based on the concept of habitats using magnetic and self-assembling tiles. The basic idea is that once deployed in space, wall-sized tiles would connect autonomously to create spacious, habitable, and reconfigurable structures.

Interestingly, a prototype of the TESSERAE samples was flown to the space station during the recently concluded Axiom-1 mission. Organised by Axiom Space, the mission was backed by NASA and was the first commercial one to the ISS. A team of four astronauts, led by former NASA astronaut and Axiom Vice President Michael Lopez-Alegria ran tests on the TESSERAE samples during their 15-day stay aboard the space station. 

In a conversation with MIT News, Ekblaw explained the first model that was shipped to the ISS for tests. He revealed that the first structure designed by him and his team is based on buckyball geometry, similar to a football that is comprised of many hexagonal patches. "We’re hoping it could be either a single room, about the size of a crew quarters, or the galley for a kitchen, or a science lab. And then you could stack multiple modules on top of each other to create a station", the expert said. Ekblaw also predicted that there will be an even grand and large buckyball in orbit which would offer even more space. 

How would the TESSERAE space station work?

Explaining the working of the TESSERAE, he said that the tiles are custom-designed to form the target shape and they dock using novel-designed electro-permanent magnets. He revealed that these magnets are always on, which would make it easier for the modules to dock without requiring any power. These magnets can also separate autonomously if the current is made to run through them.

"The final piece is the code and the sensing that’s allowing these tiles to detect their own status with their neighbors and to make decisions around whether they should be staying together or separating”, Ekblaw added. He revealed that the test aboard the ISS was a major milestone but stated that there is still a lot of engineering left to do.