{"id":128249,"date":"2021-09-28T20:22:19","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T03:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/spacex-to-launch-worlds-first-geostationary-propellant-depot-around-the-moon"},"modified":"2021-09-28T20:22:19","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T03:22:19","slug":"spacex-to-launch-worlds-first-geostationary-propellant-depot-around-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/spacex-to-launch-worlds-first-geostationary-propellant-depot-around-the-moon","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX to launch world\u2019s first geostationary propellant depot around the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacex-to-launch-worlds-first-geostationary-propellant-depot-around-the-moon.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch that will send a commercial Moon lander on its way to Earth\u2019s nearest neighbor, rideshare organizer Spaceflight Inc and propellant depot startup OrbitFab have revealed plans for the first high Earth orbit propellant depot.<\/p>\n<p>Known as \u201cTanker-002,\u201d the co-developed spacecraft will technically be the first propellant depot \u2013 essentially a gas station in space \u2013 to reach a geostationary orbit ~36,000 km (~22,300 mi) above the Earth\u2019s surface. Based around a variant of Spaceflight\u2019s brand new Sherpa OTV space tug vehicles, OrbitFab hasn\u2019t disclosed the planned capacity of its unique GEO depot but the public specifications of Sherpa suggest that the company will be able to deliver a few hundred kilograms (300\u2212800 lb) of hydrazine accessible via several tiny docking ports.<\/p>\n<p>However, Tanker-002 isn\u2019t interesting solely for its unique position as a tanker in GEO. How Spaceflight and OrbitFab plan to get the small spacecraft into position will be a feat of engineering and trajectory design in its own right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch that will send a commercial Moon lander on its way to Earth\u2019s nearest neighbor, rideshare organizer Spaceflight Inc and propellant depot startup OrbitFab have revealed plans for the first high Earth orbit propellant depot. Known as \u201cTanker-002,\u201d the co-developed spacecraft will technically be the first propellant depot [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":465,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}