The international space station is getting a new, inflatable room that resembles a giant spare tire, NASA is set to announce Wednesday.

Slated to launch in 2015, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will fly to space deflated before being puffed into a 13-by-10-foot cylinder.

Rather than providing new living space for astronauts, the module will test whether inflatable habitats have a future as orbiting laboratories, lunar outposts or living quarters for deep-space missions.

And its arriving at a bargain price: NASA is paying Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada $17.8million for the module.

This is a great way for NASA to utilize private-sector investment, and for pennies on the dollar expand our understanding of this technology, said Lori Garver, the agencys deputy administrator.

Station astronauts will periodically enter the BEAM to check whether its thick yet flexible walls, which include layers of Kevlar, adequately block the twin hazards of space travel: radiation and micrometeorites traveling faster than bullets.

The plan is to have the hatch closed most of the time, with the crew going in and out a few times a year to collect data, Garver said. The module will stay attached to the station for up to two years.

Astronauts on long missions will need more room than afforded by the traditional aluminum-can-like modules of the space station, said Michael Gold, director of D.C. operations for Bigelow. Regardless of whether NASA wants to go back to the moon or even to Mars, expandable habitat technology is a virtual necessity, he said.

NASA developed the concept of inflatable habitats in the 1990s for a possible trip to Mars. After abandoning those plans, the agency licensed the idea to real estate and motel magnate Robert Bigelow.

Bigelow has sunk several hundred million dollars into his inflatable space habitats. In 2006 and 2007, his company successfully tested two small inflatable satellites launched by re-purposed Russian ballistic missiles.

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International space station to receive inflatable module