I've just had word from Bigelow Aerospace, now at work on the first commercial space station in Las Vegas, that the company will leapfrog its next planned test module and skip right to its first habitable space station.
That's exciting news for anyone who's been following the company's recent successes--two uncrewed test modules now in orbit and performing flawlessly. These guys are making commercial spaceflight look easy.
The previous schedule called for the first commercial space station up by 2012. No word yet on when the habitable Sundancer module will launch under the new plan, except this statement from company head Robert Bigelow via press release:
"With this decision made, the future of entrepreneurial, private sector-driven space habitats and complexes could be arriving much earlier than any of us had previously anticipated."
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