Strategies for launch and assembly of modular spacecraft

摘要

NASA's human lunar and Mars exploration program requires a new transportation system between Earth and the Moon or Mars. In recent years, unfortunately, human space exploration programs have faced myriad political, technical, and financial difficulties. In order to avoid such problems, future human space exploration programs should be designed from the start for affordability. This thesis addresses one aspect of affordable exploration programs by tackling the issue of high costs for access to space. While launch vehicle trades for exploration programs are relatively well understood, on-orbit assembly has been given much less attention, but is an equally important component of the infrastructure enabling human access to space. Two separate but related perspectives on in-space assembly of modular spacecraft are provided: first, the coupling between launch vehicle selection, vehicle design, and on-orbit assembly is explored to provide a quantitative understanding of this combined tradespace; and second, a number of on-orbit assembly methods are analyzed in order to understand the potential value of a reusable assembly support infrastructure.