Gateway Discussion Thread

[Paul451]

If the radial ports are are in the middle of the side for both modules, you cannot park two Starship HLS side by side because they won't fit.

Why would you need to?

[DanClemmensen]

If the radial ports are are in the middle of the side for both modules, you cannot park two Starship HLS side by side because they won't fit.

Why would you need to?

If you ever want to dock of two them to Gateway as proposed by someone else further up the thread, the radial ports opposite to Airlock and Esprit are the ones that appear to be available and that put the least amount of stress on the various ports that connect the Gateway elements together.  If you never need to doc two Starship HLS or if they reconfigure Gateway in some way, then you don't need to park them side by side.

A really elegant solution to all this would be to have three or four 'midship IDSS ports on Starship HLS, plus one in the nose.

[Paul451]

If the radial ports are are in the middle of the side for both modules, you cannot park two Starship HLS side by side because they won't fit.

Why would you need to?

If you ever want to dock of two them to Gateway

Why would you want to?

[This time I'll elaborate.] By the time surface activity is sufficiently busy that you need two SS-HLS landers (even ignoring the alternative HLS), Gateway would need to be significantly upgraded/expanded or replaced entirely. That's far enough ahead that it's not worth discussing in a specifically "Gateway" thread, too speculative. For example: With that much activity, you'd need a cis-lunar depot or prop-ferry, which is yet another Starship-derived vehicle; does that also dock with the station (three SS's plus a prop load)? Or would it orbit independently, in which case, would a second SS-HLS be docked with the depot between missions, leaving only one SS-HLS to dock with Gateway at a time. And how are the crew getting to Gateway if you need two landers? Not Orion. So Starship crew ferry? Yet another SS docked to the station. See what I mean? Too many moving variables to fuss over what it means for the current Gateway design.

So ignoring that: The only reason within the existing program that you'd have two Starships docked at the same time is if NASA/SpaceX decide to switch DragonXL over to a Starship supply ship, if it saves money or increases capacity at the same price. In that case, the supply-ship and HLS will both dock to HALO, opposite each other. Balanced laterally, with the mass near the station's mid-point, making attitude control easier for the station. (Total mass might be too high for the electric propulsion system, but that's another issue.)

[DanClemmensen]

If the radial ports are are in the middle of the side for both modules, you cannot park two Starship HLS side by side because they won't fit.

Why would you need to?

If you ever want to dock of two them to Gateway

Why would you want to?

[This time I'll elaborate.] By the time surface activity is sufficiently busy that you need two SS-HLS landers (even ignoring the alternative HLS), Gateway would need to be significantly upgraded/expanded or replaced entirely. That's far enough ahead that it's not worth discussing in a specifically "Gateway" thread, too speculative. For example: With that much activity, you'd need a cis-lunar depot or prop-ferry, which is yet another Starship-derived vehicle; does that also dock with the station (three SS's plus a prop load)? Or would it orbit independently, in which case, would a second SS-HLS be docked with the depot between missions, leaving only one SS-HLS to dock with Gateway at a time. And how are the crew getting to Gateway if you need two landers? Not Orion. So Starship crew ferry? Yet another SS docked to the station. See what I mean? Too many moving variables to fuss over what it means for the current Gateway design.

So ignoring that: The only reason within the existing program that you'd have two Starships docked at the same time is if NASA/SpaceX decide to switch DragonXL over to a Starship supply ship, if it saves money or increases capacity at the same price. In that case, the supply-ship and HLS will both dock to HALO, opposite each other. Balanced laterally, with the mass near the station's mid-point, making attitude control easier for the station. (Total mass might be too high for the electric propulsion system, but that's another issue.)

I do not want to dock two of them. That was another contributor's idea.

The HALO radial ports are not symmetric, because one of them hosts Esprit and the other does not.

Starship HLS is nice and roomy. You might just want to keep one to increase the available habitable space. In particular, either the demo HLS or the Artemis III HLS or both can already be there in NRHO even before PPE/HALO arrives. This would require some enhancements(!) to extend mission lifetime and to add extra IDSS ports.

A cis-lunar depot is just a depot, I think, and not another new SS type.