The Colorado-based company's latest 'burst test' is part of a campaign to build Blue Origin's Orbital Reef space station.
"This is a phenomenal achievement," Shawn Buckley, senior director of engineering and product evolution director for Sierra Space Destinations, explained in the company's statement.
The latest burst test, he said, "provides the necessary engineering foundation" to do full-scale tests of the Sierra Space module, called LIFE that will eventually form a part of Orbital Reef. The "ultimate burst pressure" test results showed that the LIFE prototype has a 33 percent margin over the certification standard for a full-scale module. Sierra said this is almost a 20 percent improvement over previous designs in its statement.Sierra has conducted two other burst tests on LIFE prototypes, in July and November last year. The company also performed, in which the modules had to withstand long periods of time at high pressures, in December 2022 and February 2023.
The ISS was launched in 1998 by NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos. Its launch ushered in an unprecedented era of global scientific collaboration. Today, though, tensions between the two nations means the future of orbital science will become increasingly fragmented.