A Tether Momentum Bank for an Orbital Depot: Storage Capacity, Exchange Rates and Desaturation Budgets

This study sizes the system named in its title from stated physical relations and a stated operating basis, and reports the result as SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED. The operating principle is rotating tether depot that stores angular momentum and exchanges it with visiting vehicles. The momentum bank is a civilian depot facility intended to exchange momentum with visiting cargo and crew vehicles during rendezvous and departure; it carries no payload other than depot logistics equipment. Every performance figure is computed by the deposited script from its inputs rather than asserted, and the headline outcomes include angular momentum stored at nominal spin of 1.03e+04 meganewton metre seconds; rotational energy stored at nominal spin of 283.1 megajoules; usable momentum capacity across the spin band of 7488 meganewton metre seconds; visiting-vehicle exchanges the bank absorbs before desaturation is required of 5. Mass, power, time and energy budgets are assembled from components so they can be audited line by line, off-design behaviour is discussed openly, and the limits of the sizing are stated in full. The design is presented as a civilian system throughout, with its governing constraint identified and quantified rather than merely encountered.