Project "Starlab" space station

[Dantassii]

I have to say, this is a very cool project. I had been toying around with the idea of a lunar space station for my VSA for a long time now, and I think this would be a fine station to throw at the moon, very impressive stuff, keep up the good work!

I agree that this is a VERY cool project. One of the things I learned while I was working on my Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee Space Institute back in the 1990's was that when it comes to manned vehicles in space, bigger is always more efficient. Small is great if the vehicle is unmanned, but the moment you put a man in the craft, the bigger it is, the easier it is to do a LOT of things with it. Of course, the bigger it is, the harder it is to get it to go anywhere interesting.

Hence the need for heavy lift boosters.

I'm currently building a Lunar Station in a 100km orbit around the Moon using the IMS modular spacecraft system. To date I've flown 233 missions from Brighton Beach using an XR5 and I'm VERY far away from it's final form. I estimate that it will take around 4,500 XR5 missions to build the entire station as I current envision it. Now, if I had a reusable, heavy lift, booster for the Moon.....

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[K_Jameson]

I have to say, this is a very cool project. I had been toying around with the idea of a lunar space station for my VSA for a long time now, and I think this would be a fine station to throw at the moon, very impressive stuff, keep up the good work!

Many thanks! As we have envisioned it, Starlab, thanks to the shelter module, is perfectly idoneous for deep space missions beyond the Van Allen belts. Actually, the only probem is that, giving the mass of the station, for placing it in low lunar orbit, the minimum scenario requires three heavy-lift launches: one for the station itself (Quasar 452), one for a TLI propulsion stage (another Quasar 452) and one for a LOI braking stage (at least a Jarvis H). An inflatable station as Malerba, much lighter than Starlab, although somewhat less capable, can be a more practical solution!

Here, an hypotetical six-launches Mars scenario with FOI hardware, that involves Starlab as hab module (no real math was performed for it, was only a concept).

 

[Dantassii]

Actually, the only probem is that, giving the mass of the station, for placing it in low lunar orbit, the minimum scenario requires three heavy-lift launches: one for the station itself (Quasar 452), one for a TLI propulsion stage (another Quasar 452) and one for a LOI braking stage (at least a Jarvis H). An inflatable station as Malerba, much lighter than Starlab, although somewhat less capable, can be a more practical solution!

An idea: Use inflatable modules for 'soft' habital zones to build up your living volume, while using 'hard' modules (such as your Starlab) for parts that will take g-loads or hold significant mass (I like your water based radiation protection area).

An idea I read about online a few years back was kind of an interesting way to get to Mars. Their idea is to launch your Mars vehicle into LEO and assemble it in as few parts as possible (using heavy lift vehicles). Once it's all together, use a relatively low thrust, but high efficiency booster to get it through the Van Allen Belts and into a High Earth Orbit (HEO). Just before it leaves Earth orbit for Mars (TMI), use a high-thrust booster to bring a optionally designed manned transfer vehicle up to the unmanned Mars vehicle, Once everyone's on board, use the high efficiency booster to leave for Mars. This minimizes the amount of time that humans are in the Van Allen Radiation Belts and maximizes the efficiency of the TMI burn. The manned transfer vehicle can be left in HEO since it's optimized for transferring humans from LEO to HEO. Or it can be brought back down to LEO and reused. Reuse is not just for 1st stage boosters you know.

The big problem with a manned mission to Mars isn't getting there, it is getting back. Having to haul all the propellant and supplies needed for the return trip all the way to Mars is very inefficient. Mining the fuel on Mars that you need to return to Earth is 1 way to reduce the dead-head payload on the outbound trip. But how about going 1 step further and building the return vehicle on Mars as well as the fuel it uses? That would really save you some vehicle mass on the outbound leg of your Mars mission. This would require a lot of robotics and remote processing technology, but with 3D printers all the rage, I'm sure it wouldn't be impossible.

Of course, going to Mars to colonize the planet instead of explore it would eliminate the need for the return vehicle all together.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[K_Jameson]

Great post, Dantassii!
Various interesting concepts here.

An idea: Use inflatable modules for 'soft' habital zones to build up your living volume, while using 'hard' modules (such as your Starlab) for parts that will take g-loads or hold significant mass (I like your water based radiation protection area).

This is a good and logical idea... i had thought a similar concept. Maybe we can use it in an hypotetical, future "Starlab Block II" station... for this first attempt, however, I wanted to follow the concept of the reuse and conversion of a rocket stage, much like the original Skylab and the recent Skylab II concept... has a background of realism that i like...

---------- Post added at 04:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 PM ----------

A potential problem of the inflatable concept is that the large post-inflation volume must be equipped and "furnished" in a second time, at the cost of more missions just to make the outpost operational. While in LEO this isn't a real drawback, in lunar orbit can represent an high initial cost - imagine an half-dozen of heavy-lift launches of Antares and Verrazzano spacecrafts (speaking of FOI hardware) to deliver equipments, experiment, furnishings in LLO just for the initial commissioning of the station...

Naturally you can inflate the station in LEO, complete it and then move to LLO... but in this way you lose much of the weight advantage of the inflatable structure.

 

[Dantassii]

A potential problem of the inflatable concept is that the large post-inflation volume must be equipped and "furnished" in a second time, at the cost of more missions just to make the outpost operational. While in LEO this isn't a real drawback, in lunar orbit can represent an high initial cost - imagine an half-dozen of heavy-lift launches of Antares and Verrazzano spacecrafts (speaking of FOI hardware) to deliver equipments, experiment, furnishings in LLO just for the initial commissioning of the station...

Naturally you can inflate the station in LEO, complete it and then move to LLO... but in this way you lose much of the weight advantage of the inflatable structure.

Inflating a structure doesn't increase its overall weight, but it does give you problems with inertia for attitude control and for major thrust maneuvers. Using the build it in LEO but launch it unmanned idea, I would bring it up in pieces and assemble it in LEO. Then use a high efficiency booster to get it into LLO unmanned. Once it's in LLO, then you send a specialized, highly optimized, manned vehicle to get your crew from LEO to the station in LLO.

The lesson learned with Apollo was/is having specialized vehicles for each phase of the mission lowers the overall mass of the system and simplifies the testing and coordination. If the only interface between 2 vehicles is a docking ring, then each vehicle can be built, tested, and optimized for its specific part of the mission.

You might also look into what the folks at Virgin Galactic are doing with their inflatable space hotels. I suspect that at least some of the interior components will be launched up with the gas bag and once the bag is inflated, the interior components will be assembled and put into place. Gas bags and the gas inside them doesn't take up a lot of volume in the launch shroud, so launching up a big pile of interior components on the same launch as the bag and the gas would make a lot of sense, especially if you have a crew on hand ready to assemble the stuff as soon as the unmanned heavy lifter boosts up the next component.

Something that I'm doing with my Lunar Station is building it in phases. The Initial Phase (which I think I called Initial assembly) was the first 5 missions and I ended up after 5 missions with something that could fly itself unmanned. It had power, cooling, control systems, RCS thrusters and fuel, and a balanced layout after 5 missions. The next phase was Initial Occupancy. At that point (I think it was mission 75) there was enough Life Support, Food Production, and centrifuge based Habitation Modules for a full time crew to be supported. The next phase is Initial Operational Capacity which I expect to happen somewhere around mission 270. At that point there will be a full fueling station, docking port system, and workshops and labs so that the Lunar Station is able to assemble and service space vehicles while construction continues. The next Phase I call Phase 1 Complete and that will occur when the 2nd fueling station is complete along with the 2nd centrifuge ring. Phase 2 Complete will occur when 4 more fueling stations are added along with 4 more Centrifuge rings. I expect that to take a total of 4,500 assembly missions, but at the rate I'm flying them, that's at least 20 real years in the future (I'm flying about 200 missions a calendar year).

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[Urwumpe]

Inflating a structure doesn't increase its overall weight, but it does give you problems with inertia for attitude control and for major thrust maneuvers. Using the build it in LEO but launch it unmanned idea, I would bring it up in pieces and assemble it in LEO. Then use a high efficiency booster to get it into LLO unmanned. Once it's in LLO, then you send a specialized, highly optimized, manned vehicle to get your crew from LEO to the station in LLO.

The weight penalty isn't the inflatable structure, but the equipment that you need to install inside for utilizing the volume. A large empty cylinder is not really something that you can use. You need to install floors, inner walls, functional equipment, everything that you need for doing more there than storing air.

 

[K_Jameson]

This is what I meant...

 

[Cizurator]

Impressive work! Soo, spacecraft3?

 

[IronRain]

Impressive work! Soo, spacecraft3?

The station will be, for now, a Spacecraft 3 project, but will take full advantage from the utilize with the dll-built Antares or Eridanus spacecrafts, of which can be considered an "expansion". The station will have explorable ambients, carefully developed by the FOI member Vittorio (Robitaille_fan on Orbiter Forum), taking inspiration from the Skylab layout.

Answer in the first post

 

[barrygolden]

Great job with Starlab. There's an Orbiter project underway that should have a landing on Mars at Nili Caldera this summer. This would make a great transit ship.

 

[K_Jameson]

Starlab with docked Antares and Eridanus spaceplane would look like this:

 

[Interceptor]

Any chance of releasing the arm,and nose cone fix for the eridanus,with this too?

 

[K_Jameson]

I'm little to do with Eridanus, except for his launcher, but... no, not in the near future.

 

[K_Jameson]

I was thinking about the kind of orbit that would be more useful for Starlab 1. I thought some alternatives:

1) coplanar to ISS, but somewhat higher (about 300 miles)
2) high inclination orbit (polar or so)
3) coplanar to lunar orbit
4) coplanar to the ecliptic

Option 1 seems interesting and could allow some funny trips from Starlab to ISS and vice versa. But i'm open to other alternatives!

 

[Loru]

I'd say coplanar to ecliptic. To use it as staging platform for interplanetary missions.

 

[Cizurator]

Depends on the station's scientific focus. If i was going to study Earth's surface, i would prefer the polar orbit. It would be good for surface photographing, nicely unconventional, but also expensive to reach and isolated from the common traffic. For outer space research, i would choose ecliptic, as Loru says. Coplanar to ISS would be the best choice, if you're particularly looking for LEO - LEO traffic.

 

[K_Jameson]

Well,
the station's focus is primarily the practice in long period stays and the study of the effect on the crew, in perspective of an Earth-Mars trip or long persistence in hostile evinronments (lunar). This is why the station has a radiation-vault area and for this motive I would prefer a slightly higher orbit than the other space stations. The station's main payload (the infrared telescope) is focused on Earth and planetary surveillance, while the original Skylab was focused on the Sun. A moderately high inclination orbit can be the right choice for these objectives; an ISS-coplanar orbit (but at higher altitude) could be a good compromise, with the bonus of enabling an ISS-Starlab traffic at low delta-v cost.

Starlab use as mid-course station for interplanetary trips wasn't in my mind for now, sincerely. In his current form, the workshop lacks the spacecraft assembling and servicing capacities that would be essential for an outpost deputed to this role. Maybe a larger station created with Starlab modules... Instead of this, a Starlab 2, 3 or a Starlab derivative can be itself an habitat for interplanetary voyages, as stated previously.
For the Moon coplanar option: as outpost for lunar missions, a right placement of Starlab would be, IMHO, the low lunar orbit (as the Malerba inflatable outpost), instead a LEO Moon-coplanar, but none of the FOI's rockets (or other orbit-hangar realistic rockets) has the capability of sending that mass in LLO in a single launch. A more complex, multiple launch scenario must be conceived for this.

---------- Post added at 03:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 AM ----------

The total weight of the station, fully loaded, is set at 178,632 Kg, or 393,463 pounds.

Of this weight, 103,632 Kg are given by the station itself; 50,000 Kg come from the water anti-radiation shield and 25,000 are storable propellants for orbital maneuvres and reboosts, for a total theoretical delta-V of 487,91 m/sec.

 

[Nicholander]

Wait, 48,891 m/s!?!? That's like more than enough to get to Sedna!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Did you just do a typo or something?

 

[K_Jameson]

487.91 m/sec!

I wrote 487,91... i was wrong... in Italy, "." and "," have reversed meanings...

 

[Nicholander]

Oh, sorry. Still I really like where this is going. When will this be released?