Downmass capability effect on In-Space Industry Startups

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

This thread is to cover the current a future of downmass capabilities and how those limitations effect the business cases for in-space manufacture of products to be sold on Earth.

Also other cases besides products such as scientific experiments return of specimens. As to how limitations of downmass could limit scientific discovery.

The current max yearly downmass is the capability of 4 Dragon flights return full loads of 3mt each (if the items are dense enough that they will fit in the limited volume) is ~12mt. In the near future 2020 with DreamChaser cargo the yearly downmass capability may go up but not by much 3 to 6mt at most. So far all this downmass capability is tied to cargo uplift to the ISS. If another LEO target requiring uplift where to be placed in orbit the downmass would increase greatly.  ISS is a scheduling problem for additional visiting vehicles than what has been planned out. So more cargo flights would probably require another LEO target.

Some of this discussion about downmass and its effect on business cases can be found on this thread:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40377.msg1679784#msg1679784

[pathfinder_01]

A Dragon spacecraft could be both LEO target and downmass if the items are automated.

[guckyfan]

In the other thread there was the idea downmass on ITS may be limited to 50t. I think when ITS can land 450t on Mars it can land 200t on earth. It would need more landing fuel so there would be a trade between upmass and downmass.

The given upmass capability is 300t to LEO. Without doing calculations it seems not unreasonable that it can handle 200t upmass and 200t downmass or close to that.

[TrevorMonty]

Any reuseable US could also be used for down mass,  make sense to earn revenue on return trip.

[AncientU]

Downmass is to first order a ballistic coefficient problem, so lifting bodies will likely play a big role.  Dedicated space lorries will be needed at some point.

The broader issue is a distribution problem.  Assume you have a number of 'factories' and each requires a unique set of feedstocks/raw materials, and each produces a set of products requiring return to the surface.  Distributor must have loading, launch of upmass, maneuvering, off-loading, onloading, reentry and landing capabilities.  All must be automated.  Factories/manufacturers will probably rely on someone else to be distributor(Amazon in space), so best if standard or generic practices could be used so many can be served by a single distributor.  Factories would congregate on same orbital plane (or planes) or at some more stable Lagrangian point like EML-1 (which has been suggested repeatedly as the space industrial center in sciFi).  Deliveries and pick-up would be preplanned and integrated to optimize use of distributor's mass/volume/loading configuration constraints.

Pallets or pods would be needed with common grappling devices and standard loading dock or external platforms would be used.  Deliveries would be robotic arm transfers to loading dock latches; pick-ups would be opposite.  'Docking' or manual handling should be avoided because of the complexity having people in the loop entails.  Multiple facilities could be visited on each trip.

[Semmel]

Downmass is to first order a ballistic coefficient problem, so lifting bodies will likely play a big role.  Dedicated space lorries will be needed at some point.

The broader issue is a distribution problem.  Assume you have a number of 'factories' and each requires a unique set of feedstocks/raw materials, and each produces a set of products requiring return to the surface.  Distributor must have loading, launch of upmass, maneuvering, off-loading, onloading, reentry and landing capabilities.  All must be automated.  Factories/manufacturers will probably rely on someone else to be distributor(Amazon in space), so best if standard or generic practices could be used so many can be served by a single distributor.  Factories would congregate on same orbital plane (or planes) or at some more stable Lagrangian point like EML-1 (which has been suggested repeatedly as the space industrial center in sciFi).  Deliveries and pick-up would be preplanned and integrated to optimize use of distributor's mass/volume/loading configuration constraints.

Pallets or pods would be needed with common grappling devices and standard loading dock or external platforms would be used.  Deliveries would be robotic arm transfers to loading dock latches; pick-ups would be opposite.  'Docking' or manual handling should be avoided because of the complexity having people in the loop entails.  Multiple facilities could be visited on each trip.

What do you mean by automated? Of course, if no human is in the space factory, all loading/unloading processes have to be done robotically. But there is a huge difference between doing something robotically but controlled from the ground or truly autonomous.

Take Canadarm for example. It is a robot, in space, unloading external hardware and moving bits and pieces of ISS around. But its far from being automatic. Its still controlled by astronauts. There is no reason this cant be done from the ground as well. Less efficiently than from the astronauts due to connection problems maybe but it can be done.

[AncientU]

I just think the model of everything being run from the ground has limited legs in a cost-based system.  Similar to the manual loading and unloading of cargo headed for ISS... or operation of the Canadarm... too manpower intensive.  Maybe with continuous comms like a global WIFI (TDRSS is too expensive and too limited in bandwidth), semi-autonomous ops could be run from the ground or at least deal with the exceptions/conflicts encountered.

Automation (primitive AI) will be a critical development field for anything happening on Mars (or Lunar) surface and adapts well to 'simple' tasks like rendezvous, pod delivery, pod pick-up, EDL.  By the time autonomous fabrication is the standard, autonomous distribution could also have evolved.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

The standard container discussion ITS(MCT) and Mars which has more on some of the points hit applying to this thread is here:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40454.msg1545378#msg1545378

The key points arrived at on that thread is that there are the following advantages when multiple shipments of same or similar cargo is occurring on regular basis:

Advantages:
1) Generic handling at the pad/landing site for loading/unloading and same for on-orbit.
2) One time payload analysis for  environmental, RF, power, CG, moment arm, weight and safety analysis/evaluation
3) Less manpower intensive and less asset tie up: spacecraft docking time, LV pad processing time, and engineering support
4) Generally lowers costs per kg even though it does add some weight due to the standard container not usable for real payload

[Asteroza]

I'd argue laser TDRS in the next TDRS revision (and any other GEO based laser relay systems like ESA's work) may be able to up the bandwidth enough for reasonable remote ops.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

I'd argue laser TDRS in the next TDRS revision (and any other GEO based laser relay systems like ESA's work) may be able to up the bandwidth enough for reasonable remote ops.

Downmass: the kg's of mass transported back to Earth.

[Asteroza]

I'd argue laser TDRS in the next TDRS revision (and any other GEO based laser relay systems like ESA's work) may be able to up the bandwidth enough for reasonable remote ops.

Downmass: the kg's of mass transported back to Earth.

Well aware of that. The issue mentioned of loading ops being in-orbit manpower intensive limiting downmass tempo is a bottleneck that could be addressed by high fidelity VR remote ops, much in the vein of current state-of-the-art used for remote driving mining trucks. While that doesn't address the labor costs of the remote operators on the ground, being fast and responsive enough to not have to preplan movement excessively due to limited bandwidth should address some pain points and costs (plus terrestrial labor is much cheaper than orbital labor), with the eventual goal of autonomous cargo loading ops using the same visual sensor feeds (plus LIDAR/radar)