Final Year Project: Space Station Design

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Logo for SpaceHQ. We like to think of ourseleves as a ragtag group of outliers trying to figure out how we can build larger structures in space. An example challenge is how we can go from modular stations such as ISS, as seen on the left of our logo, to rotating wheel space stations, on the right of our logo.

Who this page serves?

This is likely only useful for QMUL’s final year undergraduate students in who are taking EMS690U final year project under my supervision. It will make little to no sense for anyone else (inlcuding those from QMUL) as there will be a lot covered in the in-person workshops. This is merely to augment to that; it is not meant as a standalone piece.

Project Areas

The core thesis of the project is that large (or even ultra-large) space structures could help us inspirational or useful things. Human habitation and space-based astronomy are classic examples of the former whereas former whereas in-space manufacturing or tackling overcome existential risks/threats

In-Space Manufacturing (e.g., Organs, Electronics, and Pharmaceuticals Drugs)

Pursuers: Commercial businesses backed by either venture capital and/or space agencies.

3-D printing artificial organs would be a boon to those on the donor organs wait-list. ISS astronauts are also working on this technology to if these artificial organs can withstand the space environment.

Existing Players

  • Semiconductors and Electronics
    • Space Forge have spokent about 3D printing semiconductors and generally manufacturing advanced materials; at an even I attended, they spoke about how microgravity allows new alloys to be made that don’t separate due to a lack of gravity.
  • Pharmaceuticals Drugs

Large Space Stations (Modular or Monolithic)

Domain: National space agencies have built space stations so far. Commercial entities are now trying to get a piece of the pie.

Table 1: A table of space stations launched and planned.

Space Stations
Funding Name (Year) Capacity Type/Comments
Govt. funded Salyut 1 (1971) 3 Monolithic
Salyut 2 (1973) 2 Monolithic, military. Debris collision failure
Salyut 3 (1974-1975) 2 Monolithic, military
Salyut 4 (1974-1977) 3 Monolithic
Salyut 5 (1976-1977) 2 Monolithic, military
Salyut 6 (1977-1982) 3 Semi-modular
Salyut 7 (1982-1991) 3 Semi-modular
Skylab (1973-1979) 3 Monolithic
Almaz (1973-1976) 2-3 Monolithic, military
Mir (1986-2001) 3 Modular
International Space Station (2000-present) 7 Modular, international
Tiangong-1 (2011-2018) 3 Monolithic prototype
Tiangong-2 (2016-2019) 2 Monolithic prototype
Tiangong Space Station (2021-present) 3 Modular
Lunar Gateway (planned 2024) 4 Modular, lunar orbit
ROSS (planned 2027) 4 Modular, Russian national
Indian Space Station (planned 2035) 3 Likely modular, details TBA
China's next-gen station (planned, date TBA) 6 Likely modular, expanded Tiangong
Private Axiom Station (planned 2025) 4 Modular, initially ISS-attached
Vast-1 (planned 2025) 4 Single module prototype
Haven-1 (planned 2027) 8 Larger follow-up to Vast-1
Starlab (planned 2028) 4 Single-launch station
The Exploration Company's Nyx (planned 2028) 4 Modular, expandable design
Orbital Reef (status uncertain) 10 Modular, project paused in 2023
Voyager Station (conceptual) 400 Rotating wheel design, highly speculative
Orbital Reef (planned 2027) 10 Duplicate entry, remove

Large Space Telescopes (25 metres or more)

Domain: Space agencies and commercial

In-Space Servicing/Repair/Refuelling Systems

Domain: Commercial

Space-based Geoengineering

Domain: Commercial

Debris Removal

Domain: Commercial Existing Players

-ClearSpace

Technical Areas needing attention

I will keep adding to this list as I learn of areas:

  • Sample return is a technically expensive area of work. At the October 2024 talk at IOP, I think it was Andrew Bacon who spewed some statistics of sample return being unchanged since the Shuttle era. It was $£40,000/kg$ (USD) in the Shuttle era and is currently $£45,000/kg$ (USD) for the SpaceX Dragon 2. I presume this is in 2024 currency as this was said in dialogue.

  • Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) are a technical gap that Astroscale mentioned at the same October 2024 talk.

Project Blurb (for Inspiration Only)

There is a rapidly growing number of man-made satellites in Earth’s orbit, fulfilling a wide range of tasks. As satellite technology develops, there is a growing interest in the design of satellites such as the International Space Station (ISS), that are capable of sustaining human occupation for extended periods. The design requirements of these occupied satellite systems are complex and depend upon the number of occupants, the expected duration of occupation (i.e. the number of years an astronaut would spend on the satellite) and the overarching purpose of the space station.

Each group will examine a different type of space station, which serves different purposes, including

  • A habitat for long-term occupation
  • One with the optical telescopes or other imagers for disaster-monitoring, persistent Earth observations, or space-based astronomy
  • In-space factory for production of semi-conductors

Students will focus on a single application from the above list and will consider different levels of human occupants, range from less than 10 to several thousand people. The specific objectives include determining precise system-level requirements, estimating costs associated with different possible designs, and developing an Attitude and Orbit Control System. Students will need to survey available launch vehicles (incl. SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy) to develop cost estimates and a mission plan/architecture for the assembly. The latter will involve developing a high-level concept of operations needed to assemble the desired space station using either robots or astronauts. Again, a trade-off analysis is necessary as a precursor that estimates cost, speed, time, risks, etc. for each assembly style. By the end of the project, students will be expected to conclude with a recommendation on the station design, the chosen assembly architecture in the ConOps (aka Concept of Operations) for their given occupancy limit, and orbit/attitude control system simulations.

Weekly Workshop Philosophy

In line with the formal assessments (listed below) but also to prepare you as future leaders in engineering, our weekly 2-hour workshops are geared primarily towards getting you to developing broader skills than university might typically prepare you for in the early years. Some examples of skills you will develop over the coming weeks are listed below (but this is by no means an exhaustive list):

  1. Public Speaking: elevator pitch style in the early weeks to eventually being able to give rapid updates in the later weeks.
  2. Writing: Developing writing skills.
  3. Insight Generation: Reflecting on technologies1 and the underlying philosophy for their development.

Informal Assessments

Thus, we have the following two informal assessments:

  1. Weekly in-class presentations by each member of every group the entire academic year.
  2. 6-page technical report to be submitted in Week 6 of Semester B.

Formal Assessments

Table 2: 2024-25 Assessment List and Submission Deadlines.

Formal Assessments
Assessment Due Date
1. Front End Individual Design Report (15%) 6th December 2024, 16:59
2. Group Project Proposal/Feasibility Study (10%) TBC
3. Peer Evaluation with Self Reflection and Action Plan Sem A (Formative) TBC
4. Self Reflection Sem B and Engagement Mark (10%) TBC
5. Individual Detailed Design Report (40%) TBC
6. Final Group Presentation, Individual viva and Back-up Evidence (25%) TBC

Useful Resources:

This list will grow but useful resources at the time of writing are listed below.

Tools for Writing and Research Managemenent:

  1. \(\LaTeX\) template on Overleaf that I have posted.
  2. Zotero is an excellent and free tool for collecting all the papers you use for your research. These will be used as citations in the Reference section of your report(s). For these reasons, tools like Zotero are also called reference management tools. Worth downloading and reading/wathcing some tutorials online.
  3. Google Scholar is superb for finding scholarly papers in addition to the resources provided on QM+. A browser plugin can also be installed via Zotero that connects to Google Scholar to quickly import papers that you find interesting; link here for Zotero Connector.
  4. Inkscape is one example of a useful tool for making high quality images. Keynote and PowerPoint are also useful tools not only for making presentations but also for quickly making schematics or editing images.

Some Technical References:

  1. Space Systems Engineering Textbooks. The bible for this is typically SMAD by James Wertz Some goods one are by Stark and Fortescue which is also made available via the Internet Archive. Another is by Fortescue et al. which QMUL students can access on QM+.
  2. If you want to look into how books such as above can inform the development of large space structures, you can read my paper on how to robotically assemble 25 metre space telescopes and another CalTech/NASA-JPL paper on 80 metre telescopes.
  3. My blogposts on:
  4. A LOT of textbooks that I have collected in many areas (not just space) that you can use for your reports is available here.

Footnotes

  1. Here, I do not just mean space technolgoies but even those that you use in preparing your reports such as GitHub and \(\LaTeX\). ↩

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