Development of an Inflatable Airlock for Deep Space Exploration

Final document is attached. Conference Presentation Attached -- Final paper was approved in previous STI (#52681). The document under review is the conference presentation that has been accepted to the AIAA SPACE Forum. All the content and images from the presentation come directly from the paper, which has already been released via previous STI. ----- Abstract: Work is currently underway to continue development of an inflatable airlock with a variety of focus areas including the consideration of crew induced loads and interfaces, the design and development of an internal sub-structure to provide translation aids and restraints, the thermal considerations of a fabric shell depressurized during an EVA, the micrometeorite environment in deep space, and the packaging and deployment of an inflatable airlock. These items will be discussed in the following paper and describe in more detail the current state of the art in inflatable airlocks at NASA and provide guidance and assumptions for the design of a softgoods airlock system.