The Orbital Depot — AMi, Part XV
I’ll continue today with the presentation of the hardware for the AMi Exploration program with the last major piece of hardware, the orbital depot.
The Orbital Depot is a key element for the AMi Exploration Program, as its operation will provide business development growth, as well as risk mitigation to the asteroid mining activities.
The Orbital Depot construction procedure is designed to dock various structures built around the AMi Cargo propellant tank.
This tank can be launched from Earth, both as empty using the EcoRocket 8, as well as fully loaded with water using the EcoRocket Heavy.
Also, the tank can dock to the Orbital Depot as it returns from the asteroids, empty as well as full. When returning from interplanetary space, the AMi Cargo needs to brake to reduce its velocity and enter the Earth Orbit. This requires the tank to be only partly filled with water.
Also, the asteroid-mining vehicle can bring raw materials to the depot, such as lower value metals including nickel, cobalt and iron. In this case, the recoverable capsule, and not the propellant tank, docks at the depot. It can unload the ore, refuel, and begin a new asteroid-mining mission.
Materials such as aluminium and composite structures, etc can also be ferried to the depot from Earth. In this case, both the recoverable capsule and the large propellant tank can be configured and used for docking at the depot.
In the future, it is conceivable that the depot is fitted with docking ports to allow the transfer of materials, water, oxygen and hydrogen to third-party spaceships, including manned ones.
The depot will be equipped with electrolysis systems, with a higher output than those from the asteroid-mining vehicle, to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. Also, a liquefaction installation may exist onboard, to liquefy these two gases.
With the rapid development of space exploration programs, it is conceivable that various ships may dock at the depot for resupply.
It remains to be seen how this depot will eventually look like, as it will be the result of various iterations. Presently, we envisage starting with a docking node, to which various structures are connected. Multiple nodes can be launched to allow the attachment of even more structures.
In terms of size and weight, there should be no limits to how large this structure can get. By 2031, it is possible to achieve structures measuring even 100 meter and weighting a few hundred tons. In 2032–2042, it is even conceivable to dock manned modules, and operate a manned space station.
In the future, the Orbital Depot could serve ARCA as a base to assemble large structures for manned deep-space missions.
The AMi development program is financed through ARCA’s AMiE Crypto.
