Concept sketches for my Orbital Mechanics setting. This is just concept art so the designs for the spacecraft and stations aren't final. The designs I'll eventually settle on in the future for my setting probably will look completely different from these. I just wanted a visualization of how the space infrastructure I have in my head might work.

A mothership carrying the passenger spaceplane would takeoff from a coastal runway and accelerate to hypersonic speeds over the ocean as it climbs. After reaching the stratosphere, the spaceplane would detach from its mothership and ascend to a low orbit using a liquid fuel aerospike engine. I went with a spaceplane because I figure the launch acceleration (and reentry deceleration) would be less harsh on the passengers compared to a conventional rocket. After separation, the mothership would fly back to the spaceport, either autonomously or remote-piloted.

The spaceplane would then rendezvous with a space station in low Earth orbit and maneuver into its spacedock. The station is made of two contra-rotating habitation rings to cancel out the torque generated on the stationary core structure. The spacedock beneath the station is surrounded by a cylindrical shielding that protects the docked spacecraft from micrometeoroids and space debris. Operations around the station and the spacedock are facilitated by a host of robotic arms. A robotic arm is shown here assisting the spaceplane with berthing. The spaceplane has dorsal bay doors that open up to expose the docking mechanism.

Once docked, the passengers exit the spaceplane, and on a trip to the Moon, board a Lunar ferry. The ferry is powered by a fusion reactor and propelled by eight plasma propulsion rockets using argon gas as propellant. I figured nuclear fusion technology would have advanced enough to put miniaturized but powerful tokamak reactors on every space-bound vessel, and I also handwaved away the existence of electric propulsion that can provide comparable thrust to conventional liquid fuel rockets. I could have designed the ferry better, such as bringing the reactor further back and adding radiators, but again this is just temporary concept work for later revisions.

This particular ferry takes passengers between stations in low Earth orbit and a station at the Earth-Moon L1 point. I put the Lunar station on a halo orbit around a lagrange point to serve as a transport terminal between the Earth, the Moon, and the rest of the Solar System. When designing the station, I put the fuel tanks on the side of the station facing away from the sun to protect cryogenic propellants from solar radiation. Like the Earth orbital station, the Lunar station also has contra-rotating wheel habitats to balance out the torque. The ferry would also berth with the station's spacedock assisted by robotic arms.

After disembarking at the spacedock, the moonward passengers would transfer to Lunar shuttles bound for spacedocks on the Lunar surface. The shuttle then departs from the L1 station and makes a transfer burn to low Lunar orbit. At an altitude of about 100 km, the shuttle lander deorbits and begins its descent procedure towards its spaceport landing pad. After landing, a vehicle carrying a tower with an elevator and a docking bridge would drive up to the shuttle to extract the passengers and carry them to the spaceport terminal.

A fun detail I put in is that the feline astronaut in the fourth panel has their tail strapped to their suit's personal life support system pack. Don't want a lengthy appendage dangling unsecured where you can't see it.

[2026/02/07]