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Visitors to Seattle’s Museum of Flight will be able to step into a mock-up of what a futuristic space habitat could look like with the arrival later this month of TESSERAE, a life-size space station module.

The 20-foot high by 24-foot wide dome pavilion will open in the museum’s “Home Beyond Earth” exhibit on Sept. 28, in the first public display of the structure created by Cambridge, Mass.-based Aurelia Institute.

TESSERAE (Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable, Adaptive Environments) is a self-assembling space habitat concept designed to expand living and working spaces in orbit beyond the cylindrical tubes that have defined the first century of space flight.

The structure consists of electromagnetically connected hexagonal and pentagonal tiles that can be flat-packed for launch and autonomously assembled in space, according to a Museum of Flight news release on Monday. The TESSERAE platform is designed to be modular and customizable, allowing for interior living space optimized for comfort and community rather than basic survival.

Watch an assembly rendering in this video:

The TESSERAE exhibit will highlight the importance of food and communal dining as a means of maintaining people’s well-being in space. The “Green Vault” is an aeroponics system for growing fresh produce in microgravity and visitors will be able to see a functional zero-gravity sous vide cooker and fermentation orbs showcasing approaches to food prep in weightless environments.

TESSERAE also showcases other aspects of space living such as storage solutions inspired by nature. Algae-filled panels that look like stained glass demonstrate a potential method for generating breathable air. And to address moving and even relaxing in zero gravity, sea anemone-inspired inflatables and hand-knotted nets provide both functional and aesthetically pleasing solutions for navigation within the habitat.

The museum’s “Home Beyond Earth” exhibit is an immersive experience in three galleries with a focus on the past, present and future of space stations and living in orbit around the Earth. It features more than fifty artifacts, models, space-flown objects and uniforms.

TESSERAE will be open in the Museum’s Great Gallery until Jan. 12.