Author Topic: Earth-Moon two segment (ion[Cargo]/chemical[Crewed]) mission design  (Read 27416 times)

Offline tnphysics

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What if the EDS fails? Then you've stranded a crew. The CEV RCS should use the same props, allowing it to be a backup.

Offline Mr Natural

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Its been a while since I last posted on this topic but I have now completed my preliminary mass estimations for the three vehicles needed in the architecture.
 Using LOX/LCH4 propellant for all crewed segments of the mission the gross mass estimates of the vehicles are:

CEV = 100 mT
RLSAM = 90 mT (places 20 mT cargo onto surface, returns 5 mT Cargo to LLO)

I have also sized a SEP Ferry which requires 2.5 MW of power. This translates into a 8,000 square meter solar array, which is a massive solar array. To put it in perspective this is approximately 2 x football fields either side of a central vehicle. The estimated mass is 45 mT.

These vehicles are reliant on a propellant depot at EML1, which has already been placed there by commerical launches or previous SEP Ferry missions. The primary limiting factor on transporting propellants to EML1 using a SEP Ferry is the boiloff rates. LOX/LCH4 boiloff rates are challenging but reasonable, but LH2 deteriorates at an estimated 5% per month. For a 6-8 month journey, 30-40 % of the propellant is gone so this is not realistic unless much better LH2 containment boiloff rates come to fruition.

  I desperately wanted to keep the main components of the architecture two a two launch strategy, however, with the masses I currently have I expect it might have to go out to three.

What do you guys think of these masses?

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Increase your solar panels to 2.75 MW of power and you can use 250 kW for refrigeration of your hydrogen.  If you use a reflective curtain to shield your fuel tank from sunlight I suspect that your cooling equipment will only need a tiny fraction of that power.

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