NASA and Bigelow Aerospace invite media to a photo and interview opportunity at 10 a.m. PST on Thursday, March 12, at Bigelow Aerospace’s North Las Vegas facility to mark the completion of all major milestones on the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM).

Reporters will have the opportunity to see and photograph the BEAM before it’s shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch to the International Space Station later this year. Robert Bigelow, president and founder of Bigelow Aerospace, and William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, will conduct a joint question and answer session with media.

To attend, media must contact Mike Gold at mgold@bigelowaerospace.com or 202-274-0227. Media seeking additional information, or who would like to request a one-on-one interview with Bigelow, also should contact Gold. Reporters seeking a one-on-one interview with Gerstenmaier should contact Stephanie Schierholz at stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov or 202-358-1100.

The demonstration of expandable space habitat technology supports NASA’s long-term exploration goals on its journey to Mars, for which the agency will need to develop a deep space habitat for human missions beyond Earth orbit.

The BEAM is scheduled to launch in the second half of this year aboard the eighth SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the station and be installed on the aft port of the station’s Tranquility node.