Credit: ESA
The above image shows the current concept for a European low lunar orbit space station that would act as a refeuling depot, as a staging point and as a safe haven if disaster struck. At the node's nadir port a cylindrical lander with suit ports is ready to descend to the lunar surface while at the forward longitudinal port there is what appears to be a Crew Space Transportation System capsule with its Automated Transfer Vehicle-derived service module
credit: ESA
This European Space Agency image shows an interior concept for CSTS with six crew and the pilot stations on the lower level. The seat arrangement is different to the design recently released by Rocket and space Corporation Energia
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credit: Energia
Above is the Energia concept for CSTS showing an interior with seats arranged opposite to each other. I would imagine the final CSTS seating arrangement will be determined once the packaging of all the capsule subsystems is finalised
Credit: Thales Alenia Space
The station's service module and node would be launched separately from Earth using a 50,000kg (110,000lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) capable Ariane rocket and would make a lunar orbit rendezvous. Thales envisages the notional docking to take place in 2024.
credit: Thales Alenia Space
To compliment its LLO space station design Thales has its 9,300kg Meduim Lander concept (ESA has three lander concepts, small, medium, large) - pictured below. It would be launched directly to the space station using a 23,000kg to LEO capable Ariane 5 ESC-B variant and its upper/Earth departure stage
credit: Thales Alenia Space
The roadmap below has tethered flights by 2016 and Moon operations at some undetermined point in time
credit: Thales
The RHU acronym on the above image stands for radioactive heating unit. It is one of the systems being considered, along with chemical reactors, to ensure the lander can survive the lunar night. Thales' concept would operate for 15-days
credit: EADS Astrium
However Thales is not the only company to have a cylindrical lander, this is the Astrium, Lockheed Martin concept. I hope to be talking soon to the Lockheed engineers involved in this work to get more detail
While Astrium's idea is a lander that can be evolved for both Moon and Mars
credit: Astrium
on September 3, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply
Why LLO? Lunar L2 energetically makes more sense...
on September 3, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply
Not if you have a surface emergency and need to reach a habitable vehicle quickly or there is a failure with the uncrewed Orion or CSTS in lunar orbit just prior to rendezvous with the ascent vehicle
on September 3, 2008 11:51 PM | Reply
Orbiting stations are very useful for other reasons too. A station around Mars (or maybe on Phobos, which might have ice) would allow a human crew to drive rovers on the surface in real-time, vastly increasing the rate at which science could be done. Landing on Mars is extremely complex and dangerous, so delaying that until the technology improves would not be a bad idea. But, combined with sample-return from the surface to the orbiting station, a whole lot of science could be done very efficiently.