Suggested Citation:
Davis, Chris, Marcus Langston, Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, Randolph Friend, J. Garcia, Chien-Chang Lin, Albert Jordan, W. Shaw, Marti M. Sarigul-Klijn (2008) Universal Long Duration Tug Concept. AIAA Space 2008 Conference and Exposition

Current plans for manned missions to Moon, Mars and beyond involve launching very large and expensive launch vehicles. An alternative is to launch several smaller tugs and have them rendezvous in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The tugs could dock nose to tail and form a train of stages that can provide the delta V for trips to the Moon, Mars, or other planets and act as a multi-stage launch vehicle that originates from LEO. Such staging can reduce the total mass required to be lifted from the earth's surface and allow international participation, risk sharing, and cost sharing in human space flight missions. The tugs could also be pre-positioned in orbit around other planets and moons and provide the delta V for the trip back to Earth. This paper describes key areas of the proposed Universal Long Duration tug (ULD-Tug) concept.