The Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) recently unveiled new details about its ambitious Voyager Station, designed to be the first commercial space station operating with artificial gravity.
OAC, a manufacturing company focused on colonizing space, discussed Voyager Station during a press conference last month. January 29 “First Assembly” The virtual event served as an update for interested investors, marketing partners and enthusiastic tourists who hoped to someday book a room on board the Voyager rotary station.
The project’s roots go back several years.
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John Blincow established The Gateway Foundation in 2012. The organization’s plans include starting and maintaining a robust and thriving space construction industry, first with Voyager Station and the commercial space station The Gateway – “important first steps to colonize space and other worlds”, the foundation’s website states. OAC was founded by the Gateway Foundation team in 2018 as a way to help make these dreams come true.
THE hour-long presentation on January 29 and question and answer session was hosted by OAC medical consultant Shawna Pandya and broadcast live on the company’s YouTube channel. During the event, the space builder released its schedule for the next chapter of human space exploration.
His team of experienced NASA veterans, pilots, engineers and architects intends to set up a “space hotel” in low Earth orbit that rotates fast enough to generate artificial gravity for tourists, scientists, astronauts, educators and anyone who wants to have a life outside from the earth .
As a multi-stage venture that requires funds to fulfill the dream, the CAB is now officially open to private investors for buy a stake in the company at $ 0.25 per share, until April 1, 2021.
Voyager Station follows the pattern of concepts imagined by legendary rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, one of the main orchestrators of NASA’s Apollo program. The 200-meter-wide wheel-shaped habitat will rotate at an angular velocity high enough to create moon-like levels of artificial gravity for occupants.
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Designed by Gateway Foundation executive team member and leading architect Tim Alatorre, Voyager will become the largest man-made structure in space, fully equipped to accommodate up to 400 people. Assembly is scheduled to begin around 2025, said representatives of the Gateway Foundation.
This brilliant technological ring will feature amenities ranging from themed restaurants, screening rooms, cinemas and concert halls to bars, libraries, gyms and a spa.
Voyager will house 24 integrated housing modules, each 65 feet long and 40 feet wide (20 by 12 meters). Almost lunar gravity, the revolving resort will have functional bathrooms and showers and will allow you to run and jump in new and fun ways.
But before the station begins to turn, its builders must establish the necessary orbital infrastructure and create smaller structures to test the concept.
Blincow explained during the January 29 event that the current plan is to build the rotating space station in stages, starting with a small-scale prototype station, plus a free flight microgravity facility, both using components from Voyager.
“This will be the next industrial revolution,” said Blincow.
Eventually, a Structure Truss Assembly Robot (STAR) will manufacture the structure of the Voyager and Gateway stations in orbit. Before that happens, however, a smaller, ground-based prototype, known as DSTAR, will test the technology here on Earth.
OAC’s truss assembly robot is the first to build a space station in low Earth orbit and will serve as “structural backbone for future projects in space,” said OAC manufacturing manager Tim Clements during the event.
The machine is currently undergoing commissioning and shipping. It will then be completed and tested in California.
“The prototype will produce a truss section of approximately 300 feet [90 m] in less than 90 minutes, “revealed Clements during the live broadcast event.” The DSTAR weighs almost 8 tons in mass, consisting of steel, electrical and mechanical components. “
OAC is also creating a robotic observer drone for remote viewing through a virtual reality headset as its first in-house development project.
“It will be our eyes in the workplace,” said Alatorre. “The observer drone operates in a support function. It can land on existing ships. It can also be fully reusable and can fly and have a free flight mode on extended missions.”
Long before Voyager Station began to accommodate guests, the CAB needed to test the construction of a station in low Earth orbit and prove the feasibility of artificial gravity in space. The company plans to build a prototype gravity ring that will measure 200 feet (61 m) in diameter and will be designed to rotate to create artificial gravity close to the level of Mars, which is about 40% of Earth.
“The gravitational ring will be a key technology demonstration project that we plan to build, assemble and operate in low Earth orbit in just a few years,” said OAC co-founder Jeff Greenblatt. “The company also plans to use an orbital version of DSTAR called PSTAR, which stands for Prototype Structural Truss Assembly Robot.”
This gravity ring will act as a “short-term demonstrator”, which will take two to three years to build and launch. Once installed in orbit, it will take three days to assemble. This structure will act as the company’s test base for many of the technologies to be used in the construction of the Voyager Station.
“We have not seen an explosion of commercial activity in space,” said Alatorre. “The cost was about $ 8,000 per kilogram [$17,600 per lb.] for a long time. But with Falcon 9, you can do that for less than $ 2,000. And when Starship goes online, it will only cost a few hundred dollars. “(These were references to the SpaceX launchers – the company’s flagship Falcon 9 rocket and yours Starship vehicle Mars, which is in development.)
“Microgravity is just brutal on our bodies,” added Alatorre. “We need artificial gravity – a mechanism that gives us a measure of gravity to give us the ability to live long in space.”
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The planned gravitational ring could also become a research platform for international space agencies and private aerospace companies interested in the effects of partial artificial gravity on living and non-living systems, OAC representatives said.
“This will give researchers an unprecedented opportunity to access this intermediate severity regime,” said Greenblatt. “This will pave the way for OAC to build bigger and more complex structures in space, which is obviously necessary if we are to get to the point of building the Voyager Station and other larger structures beyond.”
Looking to the future, government and private companies will be allowed to use Voyager modules for lunar training missions and beyond, providing a launch pad for entrepreneurs to develop and market tourism activities in space.
“We don’t want the Voyager experience to be like being on a combat attack submarine, so we’re [building] for added comfort, “said Tom Spilker, chief technology officer at OAC and vice president of space systems engineering and design.” It is slightly less than the length of the United States Capitol building. “
“Despite the seemingly endless list of luxury amenities, there will also be air locks for visitors,” added Spilker. “So anyone who can afford a space hotel can take a private space walk, where the only thing between you and the universe is a faceplate.”
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