Moon & Mars Orbiting Spinning Tether Transport - Tethers Unlimited

Appendix L: Tether Boost Facility Design Final Report1 ScopeThe MMOSTT system is an in-space transportation system that incorporates an Earthorbitingfacility with a spinning tether as a primary element. This document describesthe top-level system requirements for a tether boost facility in low Earth orbit. Therequirements defined here are for the objective system, that is, for a facility that is partof an operational full-scale transportation system that boosts payloads from low Earthorbit to higher orbits or Earth escape. Requirements for sub-scale or demonstrationsystems may be described at a future date in other documents. Requirements for tetherfacilities in higher Earth orbits or in orbits about other planetary bodies may bedescribed at a future date in other documents.The tether facility consists of the tether, a control station, and a grapple assembly. Thecontrol station controls the tether and tether dynamics. The grapple assembly capturesand releases payloads.A payload is any object that will be accelerated or decelerated toward a destination inspace. The transportation system includes a payload accommodation assembly toprovide the interface between the payload and the grapple assembly on the tetherfacility.This document describes requirements including a nominal payload mass and anominal release orbit. It is envisioned that the tether facility will be able to grapplepayloads with greater or lesser mass than nominal and release them after impartingless or more delta-v, respectively, than nominal. However, no requirements areimposed on the delta-v that must be imparted to non-nominal payloads, except that thesystem can deliver a smaller payload to the same release orbit as a nominal payload.The tether facility is envisioned to accommodate modular assembly and growth, so itscapacity may be expanded to handle larger payloads if a need arises.L-41