The Moon is the Best Place to Transport Rocket Fuel - by ET_Exists
The researchers determined the Earth refueling option would involve approximately 1.5 launches of a Falcon Heavy Expendable plus propellant tank with a spacecraft refueling payload of 17.5 tons. While the OD has a capacity of 25 tons, the FH would need to bring a combined total of 26.69 tons as the remaining 1.69 tons of fuel would be used to “transfer the refilling tank with its subsystems”, according to the study.
with a payload of 25 tons that launches from the Moon, docks and refuels the OD to its maximum capacity of 25 tons , then returns to the lunar surface, with the assumption that zero fuel is lost during the entire process. As stated, the hypothetical lunar mining company put the fuel costs at $500 per kilogram, and the study put the total refueling price tag at $37.51 million dollars, which includes launch plus fuel costs, giving a total operation cost of $35 million per year.
“So, if you want to put this project into real substance, it should be able to understand and to analyze data from a project financing point of view,” Pianorsi recently told. “So, it’s the same logic under which you finance the infrastructure here on Earth, you have to understand how to incentivize your investors to jump in on the basis of the mitigation of the risk that you that you put in place, for instance, through contracts.
“The companies need to understand that economic sustainability is the new prerogative of the new space economy,” Pianorsi tells. “It’s not anymore cost-plus contracts of NASA. Right now, the times are changing and even space agencies, especially in times of budget constraints, need to rely on private companies to make innovation and to improve efficiency. And this implies not only from a cost perspective, but even from a market perspective.
Could a future orbiting depot assist in crewed missions to the Moon, and will it turn out to be cheaper to refuel from the Moon than from the Earth? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
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