The new smallsat LVs in development have potential to create a whole new area of possibilities for a commercial station. These LVs allow for miniature COTS vehicles (eg 120-150kg Cygnus or DC) to be developed that can launch on demand for <$5m. These vehicles would be small enough to be robotically captured and placed in an ISS airlock. Where cargo/experiments are removed and reloaded for down mass(DC) or rubbish disposal(Cygnus).Besides supplying ISS the same vehicles could be free flier labs or service a small fully automated station. Full size Cygnus would make an ideal automated station.{snip}
Given small size of vehicles it would be simpler to just fly them into an airlock then deal with them. With ISS safety this may be an issue but for automated station it shouldn't be a problem.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 07/20/2015 09:44 pmGiven small size of vehicles it would be simpler to just fly them into an airlock then deal with them. With ISS safety this may be an issue but for automated station it shouldn't be a problem.If the space station has an air lock then visits from people are expected so air quality has to be controlled.An in vacuum handling area is possible.
The new smallsat LVs in development have potential to create a whole new area of possibilities for a commercial station. These LVs allow for miniature COTS vehicles (eg 120-150kg Cygnus or DC) to be developed that can launch on demand for <$5m. These vehicles would be small enough to be robotically captured and placed in an ISS airlock. Where cargo/experiments are removed and reloaded for down mass(DC) or rubbish disposal(Cygnus).Besides supplying ISS the same vehicles could be free flier labs or service a small fully automated station. Full size Cygnus would make an ideal automated station.These small COTs vehicles with regular supply runs may also make a small partially manned station possible eg few Cygnus or Exoliner modules connected together with crew of 2-3. A small crew frees up a lot of room in crew capsule (Dragon or CST100) for cargo or accommodation. With 3 major suppliers in small sat LV market (RocketLab, Firefly, LauncherOne), prices should only go down and hopefully lead to even lower cost RLVs. NB. The miniature DC is required as it has to be able to land at an airport. A capsule would be OK if it can land on land as water recovery adds significant costs.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 07/20/2015 05:00 pmThe new smallsat LVs in development have potential to create a whole new area of possibilities for a commercial station. These LVs allow for miniature COTS vehicles (eg 120-150kg Cygnus or DC) to be developed that can launch on demand for <$5m. These vehicles would be small enough to be robotically captured and placed in an ISS airlock. Where cargo/experiments are removed and reloaded for down mass(DC) or rubbish disposal(Cygnus).Besides supplying ISS the same vehicles could be free flier labs or service a small fully automated station. Full size Cygnus would make an ideal automated station.These small COTs vehicles with regular supply runs may also make a small partially manned station possible eg few Cygnus or Exoliner modules connected together with crew of 2-3. A small crew frees up a lot of room in crew capsule (Dragon or CST100) for cargo or accommodation. With 3 major suppliers in small sat LV market (RocketLab, Firefly, LauncherOne), prices should only go down and hopefully lead to even lower cost RLVs. NB. The miniature DC is required as it has to be able to land at an airport. A capsule would be OK if it can land on land as water recovery adds significant costs. One of the concepts Altius has been working on for several years is the idea of using smallsat launch vehicles *without* mini rendezvous spacecraft for deliveries to space facilities. Upper stages already have a decent amount of sophistication, if you have a capture arm that doesn't require the delivery vehicle to station keep (*cough*Sticky Boom*cough*), you can put the prox ops sensors on the destination side, and talk the upper stage through the rendezvous maneuvers. If you do it that way, you get a much better $/kg rate than if you have to take up half your cargo mass with a very expensive wrapper.~Jon