ISRU Centrifugal Orbital Node

ICON is conceived as a small-crew outpost for approximately four to six people in lunar orbit.

Potential roles include supporting lunar surface operations, acting as a staging point for further exploration, providing a research platform for long-duration human operations and demonstrating technologies associated with lunar-derived resources.

The rotating habitation section is designed to generate artificial gravity through centripetal acceleration.

The current concept uses a 50 m radius and approximately 4.23 RPM rotation rate, producing an artificial-gravity environment intended to balance gravity level against rotational comfort considerations.

The relationship between radius, angular velocity and artificial gravity is a central constraint on the architecture.

The structural connection between the central spacecraft and rotating habitation section must carry the centripetal load generated by the rotating mass.

The concept investigates carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) as a structural material because of its high strength-to-mass ratio.

Further development would require detailed structural dynamics, fatigue analysis, vibration analysis and evaluation of the spin-up and spin-down processes.

ICON is designed around a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), an orbit considered for sustained operations in the Earth–Moon system.

The orbital environment affects stationkeeping, transfers, communications, radiation exposure and logistics between the station and the lunar surface.

Detailed orbital analysis is therefore an important part of determining the practical requirements of the station.

Electrical power is provided by deployable solar arrays sized around the station's expected continuous load.

Energy storage is included to provide power during periods when solar generation is unavailable or insufficient.

Heat generated by electronics, life-support equipment and crew metabolism must ultimately be rejected to space.

The concept sizes radiator requirements using thermal radiation relationships based on the Stefan–Boltzmann law.

Water is considered as a primary shielding material around crewed areas. Hydrogen-rich materials can provide useful shielding mass against space radiation while also serving other logistical purposes.

A complete radiation design would require detailed analysis of both solar particle events and galactic cosmic radiation.

The concept investigates the possibility of producing stationkeeping propellant from water extracted from lunar resources.

Water can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis, providing potential propellant components as well as a source of stored water for station operations.

Propellant requirements are evaluated using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation together with the assumed stationkeeping Δv budget.

Crew logistics are based on environmental control and life support assumptions together with recycling of selected consumables.

Food remains a major recurring consumable and therefore contributes directly to the required resupply mass.

The complete ICON design study contains the detailed calculations, subsystem sizing, assumptions and technical analysis behind this project.