orbital location and then departs. In-space fuel depots are not necessarily located near or at a space station. Potential users of in-orbit refueling An orbital propellant depot is a cache of propellant that is placed in orbit around Earth or another body to allow spacecraft or the transfer stage of the spacecraft to be fueled in space. It is one of the types of space resource depots that have been proposed for enabling infrastructure-based space exploration. Many depot concepts exist depending on the type of fuel to be supplied, location, or t A…

As space exploration and technology continue to advance, there is an expanding interest in robotic on-orbit servicing (OOS) to conduct repairs, refueling, or debris removal of damaged spacecraft. The development of OOS relies on ground testing facilities as they simulate the conditions and dynamics of space in a controlled environment, useful for testing and validating new technologies and procedures. Given the significance of both ground testing facilities and the development of OOS technology, this thesis endeavors to design, optimize, and construct a floating spacecraft simulator (FSS) with an attached seven degrees of freedom robotic arm. A CAD model was used to create the final version of the FSS, which incorporated all hardware necessary for the power and subsystem control. This included the onboard computer, reaction wheel, thrusters, air bearings, and the robotic arm. The design was then constructed and an accompanying assembly guide and electronic schematic of the FSS system were formulated. During the functionality trial conducted on one of the NPS Space Robotics Laboratory granite tables, the final product successfully demonstrated its capability to operate the thruster, air bearings, and robotic arm operations.

this concept has not been demonstrated. Some proposed missions that would require this in-space refueling include: geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Starship (or colloquially the Ship) is a spacecraft and second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Stacked atop its booster, Super Heavy, the pair compose SpaceX's super heavy-lift space vehicle, also called Starship. The spacecraft is designed to transport both passengers and cargo to a variety of destinations, including Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. It is designed to Starship (or… For a non-Starlink satellite launch, Starship is planned to have a large cargo door that opens to release payloads, similar to NASA's Space Shuttle, and close upon reentry instead of a jettisonable nosecone fairing. Instead of a cleanroom, payloads are integrated directly into Starship's payload bay, which requires purging the payload bay with temperature-controlled ISO class 8 clean air. Crewed Starship vehicles would replace the cargo bay with a pressurized crew section and have a life-support system. For long-duration missions, such as crewed flights to Mars, SpaceX describes the interior as potentially including "private cabins, large communal areas, centralized storage, solar storm shelters, and a viewing gallery". Starship's life support system is expected to recycle resources such as air and water from waste. Starship has been proposed to be able to refuel by docking with separately launched Starship propellant tanker spacecraft in orbit. If this concept proves successful, it could potentially increase the spacecraft's mass capacity, theoretically allowing it to reach higher-energy targets. As of 2025 this concept has not been demonstrated. Some proposed missions that would require this in-space refueling include: geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A Starship propellant depot could cache methane and oxygen on-orbit and be used by Starship to replenish its fuel tanks. Starship Human Landing System (HLS) is a crewed lunar lander variant of the Starship vehicle that would be modified for landing, operation, and takeoff from the lunar surface. It features landing legs, a body-mounted solar array, a set of thrusters mounted mid-body to assist with final landing and takeoff, two airlocks, and an elevator to lower crew and cargo onto the lunar surface. Varying estimates have been given about the number of tanker launches required to fully fuel HLS, ranging from between "four and eight" to a number "in the high teens". These launches will reportedly have to be in "rapid succession" in order to manage schedule constraints and cryogenic fuel boil-off. When fully fueled, Starship HLS is designed to land 100 t (220,000 lb) of payload on the Moon.

engineering teams. The rigors of space flight place qualitative demands on hardware and software far beyond what's required for Earth-bound gear. But nothing's perfect. Even in space, things break; things run low on fuel; things need to be updated. What to do?In January of 2013, NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission completed a major test at the International Space Station. Using the Canadian Robot arm called Dextre, controllers at the Johnson Space Center and engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center demonstrated new Download Movies G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER-prores.mov (1280x720) [6.2 GB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [227.8 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [238.7 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_appletv.m4v (960x540) [189.4 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_720x480.webmhd.webm (960x540) [99.4 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_720x480.wmv (720x480) [212.1 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [75.5 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER.mov (640x360) [186.4 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days-MASTER_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [40.8 MB] Images G2012-095_RRM_Days.png (1280x720) [1.0 MB] G2012-095_RRM_Days_web.png (320x180) [275.8 KB] G2012-095_RRM_Days_thm.png (80x40) [17.7 KB] RRM: MISSION TO THE FUTURE DELIVERS THE GOODS Spacecraft design tests even ambitious engineering teams. The rigors of space flight place qualitative demands on hardware and software far beyond what's required for Earth-bound gear. But nothing's perfect. Even in space, things break; things run low on fuel; things need to be updated. What to do? In January of 2013, NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission completed a major test at the International Space Station. Using the Canadian Robot arm called Dextre, controllers at the Johnson Space Center and engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center demonstrated new The prospect of robots in space tantalizes NASA engineers with extraordinary possibility. Powerful and sophisticated, these tools may be able to extend the working

Validation of a Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics Model for Vapor Pull-Through in Normal and Low Gravity On-orbit fluid transfer such as refueling of propellant tanks and life-support systems can enable long-duration space missions. For safe and efficient liquid transfer operations, prior knowledge of liquid positioning and liquid-vapor interface behavior while draining in a reduced-gravity environment is required. Numerical models capable of predicting vapor ingestion (or vapor pull-through) can be used to design liquid transfer operations while reducing liquid residuals, mission risk and settling thrust required to prevent vapor ingestion. An experimental program conducted in the 2.2 Second Drop Tower facility at NASA Lewis Research Center in 1969 investigated the vapor ingestion phenomenon for a range of outflow rates and tank sizes providing a database for validation. This study presents a Computational Fluid Dynamics model capable of accurately predicting the vapor ingestion using the Volume-of-Fluid multiphase solver in commercial code STAR-CCM+. A description of the experimental setup and general trends from similar studies are presented.