Moon & Mars Orbiting Spinning Tether Transport - Tethers Unlimited

3.2.9 Operational Orbital LifetimeThe minimum operational orbital lifetime of orbiting elements shall be 15 days.Orbital lifetime is the time from loss of control until an orbiting asset becomes so deeply snared by theatmosphere that re-entry becomes unavoidable. Operational orbital lifetime refers to the orbital lifetime ofan asset that has reached its operational orbit. The orbital lifetime may be lower while the asset is in anassembly orbit or deployment orbit.3.2.10 Payload Pickup ReliabilityThe system shall pick up a nominal payload from a nominal pickup orbit with better than 99% reliability.The sum of Error (99.5%, grapple position, attitude, and velocity vector) plus Error (99.5%, PAA position,attitude, and velocity vector) will be smaller than the operating envelope of the grapple mechanism.This is equivalent to saying the system must control state vectors of elements well enough that when thesystem reports it has placed the payload within the grapple envelope, then the operator can have 99%confidence that the payload is actually within the grapple envelope.3.3 Communications, Control, Sensing, & Telemetry3.3.1 Communicate Mission ReadinessThe system shall assess and communicate its health and status to the operator in sufficient detail to enable adetermination of mission readiness prior to payload launch.3.3.2 Communicate StatusEach system element shall communicate its position using a common time reference, its health, and itsstatus.3.3.3 Automated Mission ProfileThe system shall provide a capability to automatically produce mission profiles.3.4 Deployment3.4.1 Launch VehicleOrbiting elements of the system shall be capable of being launched on an existing launch vehicle.Existing means that the selected launch vehicle is credibly expected to be operational when the tethersystem is ready for deployment.3.4.2 First Launch CapabilityThe first launch segment shall provide some operational capability.Some operational capability means a non-zero delta-v is added to a non-zero payload mass.