Skyship
Weatherlight
The Skyship Weatherlight is meant to be
an interplanetary starship able to explore the solar system.
1Vision
A single craft able to leave and enter
a gravity well of a planet or moon under her own power, fully self
sufficient and able to land and explore many planets and moons in the
Solar System in a single majestic mission.
1.1Specifications
Functionalities:
- Ship able to leave and enter the gravity well of a planet under the ship own power.
- Ship is able to land on rocky surfaces.
- Ship is able to run all her primary system but the Newtonian engine at least one hundred years without refuelling.
- Ship has at least three layers of redundancy on every primary system.
- Ship has an Earth-grade radiation shield.
- Ship has a closed loop life support system that recycles water, air and food.
- Ship is able to enter in orbit around Mars in under one year.
- Ship is able to enter in orbit around Jupiter from earth in under five years.
- Ship has some form of artificial gravity to combat weightless symptoms.
1.2Primary Systems
A primary system is a system the ship
would not work without.
List of Primary Systems:
- Hull
- Power Generator
- Direct Propulsion
- Indirect Propulsion
- Attitude Control
- Thermal Management
- Fluid Distribution
- Damage Control
- Navigation
- Life Support
1.3Redundancy
Primary systems are to be at least
triple redundant. Each layer of redundancy should be able to handle
all the ship's load on its own to be a true redundancy. Differing
levels of efficiency and endurance are allowed for lower ranked
redundancies of a system.
Backup system should regularly be
switched on and allowed to take over from the main system in disaster
recovery simulations. Otherwise the backup might not be there when
the main actually fails.
1.3.1Main
Default system used at all times.
Highest efficiency system.
Main system has at least the same
endurance as the ship.
Main system operates far away from the
SOA (Safe Operating Area) to maximize operational margin and
endurance.
1.3.2Backup
Backup system must be able to handle
the ship loads just like the main system.
Backup system must have at least the
same endurance as the ship.
Ideally the backup system has the same
efficiency and endurance as the main system.
Backup system is allowed to operate at
a lower efficiency and endurance to the main system.
Backup should be in a physically
independent position from the main system if at all possible.
Backup system is allowed to work closer
to the limits of the SOA.
1.3.3Emergency
Meant as final safeguard when all else
fails.
Meant to allow survival of crew while
either main or backup systems are brought back online.
Must be independent and on physically
different location from Main and Backup systems. There can be
multiple smaller backups. Low efficiency and endurance are allowed to
emergency systems.
2Primary Systems
2.1Primary System: Hull
The Hull is the backbone and mechanical
support for every other system on the ship.
The Hull primary system includes the
following subsystems:
- Structural Members
- Bulkheads
- Skin
- Airlocks
- Cargo Bays
2.2Primary System: Power
The Power System provides electrical
power for all the ship's systems
The Power System is comprised of
several subsystems:
- Thermal Generators
- Energy Accumulators
- Power Distribution
- Stirling Engines
- Solar Panels
Energy density of the fuel is the
primary concerns. All equipment is competing for volume and mass on
the ship. A ship that is 99.99[%] fuel in order to achieve a
significant Mean-Time-To-Refuel is not what I want.
The longest leg of the travel without
refuelling allows to compute the minimum fuel density in terms of
[KJ/Kg] and [KJ/m3].
2.3Primary System: Direct propulsion
The Direct Propulsion provides thrust while travelling in interplanetary void. It expends reaction mass stored inside the ship to have something to push against.The primary concerns is the impulse. The amount of momentum that can be gained by expending a given amount of fuel. Achieving high exhaust velocity is the way to go to achieve high impulses.
The longest leg of the travel without
refuelling allows to compute the minimum impulse required of this
system.
2.4Primary System: Indirect Propulsion
Leaving and entering the gravity well of a planet is a gargantuan task. On the lower atmosphere of a planet like earth, a winged system that make use of an outside fuel can achieve somewhat sustainable energy requirements but is infeasible on planets and moon without a dense atmosphere.The ship is to be equipped with a propulsion system able to make use of reaction mass not inside the ship for propulsion.
2.5Primary System: Attitude Control
This system is meant to provide attitude control in either atmospheric or vacuum conditions.The attitude control system includes the following subsystems:
- Gyros
- Manoeuvring thrusters
- Aerodynamic surfaces
2.6Primary System: Thermal Management
The thermal management system takes care of regulating the temperature of all other systems of the ship.The thermal management system includes the following subsystems:
- High Temperature Radiators
- Low Temperature Radiators
- Hot and Cold fluid pumps
- Heat pumps
- Heaters
- Thermal Storage tanks
2.7Primary System: Fluid Distribution
The fluid distribution system is a series of pipes, tanks and pumps that moves fluids like fuel, air, water and thermal fluid around to and from the various systems of the ship.The fluid distribution system includes the following subsystems:
- High pressure pumps
- Low pressure pumps
- High temperature pumps
- Fluid tanks
- Atmospheric collector
- Relief valves
- Distribution valves
- Distribution piping
- Pipe and Tank cleaning and sterilization
- Fractional distillation
The fluid distribution system I have in mind is highly refined. Capable of pumping heat and fluid to and from radiators or tanks. A network of switches and valves allows to reconfigure the arrangement of the thermal system. Example, the ship connects the atmospheric scoopers with low pressure, high pressure pumps to an empty tank to refuel from atmosphere. The fluid is divided through distillation, sterilized, and directed to the relevant tanks to be used as fuel, air, water or propulsion mass.
2.8Primary System: Damage Control
This system uses a sensor network and a simulator to monitor the status of the ship. It can take automatic action to fix issues on the ship after simulating the effects. Example: a pipe breaks into vacuum. The pressure sensor detects the pressure drop, insulate the pipe and the distribution system is instructed to redirect the flux to another pipe.
The damage control system is comprised
by the following subsystems:
- Sensor network
- Actuators network
- Communication bus
- Sensor Communication and Power Bus: sensor power is independent of the main power grid and can be powered directly by the damage control station emergency batteries.
- Damage Control Station
- Ship Simulator
2.9Primary System: Navigation
The navigation system is insulated from other computer systems on the ship. It includes the astrometric computer, star maps, telescopes, navigation controls and astro navigation. It's objective is to compute the position of the ship, and compute and execute the optimal trajectory, whatever it's to optimize travel time or fuel consumption.
The navigation system is comprised by
the following subsystems:
- Telescopes
- Starmaps
- Astrometric computer: compute ship position
- Astro Navigation Computer: compute ship trajectory
- Navigation Controls: Coordinates all engines and control surfaces of the ship to execute trajectory
- External Sensors
2.10Primary System: Life Support
A ship without crew is meaningless.
Life support system takes care of allowing survival in space.
The life support system includes the
following subsystems:
- Atmospheric Pressure Controls
- Temperature Controls
- Humidity Controls
- Food Cultures
- Emergency Rations
- Water Recycling
- Solid Waste Recycling
- Air Composition Controls
- Noise Abatement
- Living Space
- Artificial Gravity
3Auxiliary Systems
A secondary system is a system that is
not strictly required for the ship to work.
List of auxiliary systems:
- Communication
- Leisure
- Land Rover
- Active Debris Interception
- Maintenance Robot: Remote controlled camera spiderbot to look
inside the ship
- Floating Robot: Same as maintenance robot but with fans and
for zero gravity open space
Auxiliary systems are allowed to have
just one layer of redundancy or no redundancy at all.
3.1Auxiliary System: Communication
The communication system is meant to
maintain communication with Earth.
Subsystem:
- Antenna Array
- Radios
- Communication Computer
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