London, July 7 (ANI): A year after the successful launch of their first model inflatable space habitat, Bigelow Aerospace has launched a second, Genesis II.

Nearly a week after its launch from Russia on June 28, the company said, “the new craft has inflated successfully and has transmitted its first photos back to Bigelow Aerospace headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada”.

Genesis II is believed to be the next step in hotelier-turned-space-entrepreneur Robert Bigelow's plan to open up business in outer space.

Initially labeled a 'space hotel', Bigelow has now said it could be much more, a science lab, a factory, a medical clinic, or, perhaps, a corporate yacht.

Bigelow has already spent 100 million dollars on the company, and plans to invest another 400 million by 2015.

Though Genesis II looks essentially identical to its predecessor, it contains several new features, including improved stabilization and control systems, and a projector that can cast images — potentially ads — on the outside of the craft.

According to Nature, the craft also carries a selection of mementos sent in by paying customers keen to fly their stuff to space, cameras to catch it all floating about, and, even more bizarrely, a bingo ball shaker that should mix up and select a series of bingo calls (a challenge in microgravity) for players down on Earth in the coming weeks.

While the first Bigelow inflatable craft carried up into space a 'crew' of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and Mexican jumping beans, the second craft holds a few scorpions and a colony of California red harvester ants.

The arthropod crew of Genesis II — which the company refers to as their 'arthronauts' — lives in a specially designed, pressurized 'biobox' containing a variety of food, a water-retaining gel and a special system for cleaning out animal waste.

Their status is currently unknown, though. (ANI)