An Inflatable and Ultraviolet-Rigidised Shell System for Orbital Workshops: Gas, Curing and Surface-Area Budgets

This paper presents a computed design study, SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED, for a rigid workshop shell 8 metres in diameter for housing production equipment in orbit, using glass-fibre laminate impregnated with ultraviolet-curing resin, packed flat. The operating principle is distinct from neighbouring production methods: a folded laminate shell is inflated with a small gas charge to its working shape and then exposed, panel by panel, to concentrated solar ultraviolet, which polymerises the resin and converts the soft shell into a rigid structure. Launch volume is a fraction of the deployed volume, which is the entire point. The budgets that decide feasibility are the inflation gas mass, the ultraviolet dose per unit area and the time the Sun geometry allows for curing. Sizing follows from budgets computed in the accompanying script rather than from analogy with terrestrial equipment. The headline figures are a specific energy of 0.0667 megajoules per kilogram of product, an installed electrical power of 1.1 kilowatts, a production rate of 10.9 kilograms per hour, and an annual throughput of 8.63e+04 kilograms over 330 operating days. Rejecting 0.605 kilowatts of waste heat at 305 kelvin requires 1.4 square metres of radiator, a photovoltaic supply requires 2.69 square metres of array, and the installed mass is 217 kilograms. Moving feedstock from a 400 kilometre to an 800 kilometre orbit costs 217 metres per second of velocity change. The study is a computed study with no targeting or weapon application; it concerns civilian production equipment only, and none of its figures is a measurement.