SpaceX concept space station

grabcad

My concept for a SpaceX space station based on starship architecure. It consists of 2 connector modules small enough to be carried in a cargo starship, and 4 single launch modules based on the tank section of a base starship with an enlarged crew area. These modules are envisioned to have a crew area 14m in diameter and have 6 non-gimballed rapter vacuum engines with 1 gimbaled sea level raptor. After achieving orbit all the raptor engines are removed with the exception of 1 vacuum raptor kept for station keeping and mounted to a gimbal, the rest of the engines are brought back to earth for reuse or jettisoned into space. The 3 other gimbal engine mounts are proposed to be reused for mounting rotary actuators for communications equipment and solar arrays. Of the 4 single launch modules it is proposed that one would keep its fuel tanks to provide fuel storage for station keeping, oxygen storage, and support space craft refueling. The other 3 would have their tanks cut open or designed with flange mounted panels that could be removed to provide additional storage and crew space. This station design should be fairly afforable and not require crazy amounts of new development. It provides enough volume to support crews in excess of 80 persons. A single starship, setup as a lifeboat, is kept on station. Its thought that this setup could be used in leo as well as in lunar orbit with leo refueling just as a standard starship would do. A station equipped for lunar orbit would contain more insulation for radiation mitigation, therefore the usable space within the fuel tank area could only be used for storage versus long term crew usage. This would still allow for a quite large crew compliment of perhaps 40-50 persons. One of the lox tanks opposite the remaining station keeping tanks could be repurposed as a liquid hydrogen storage tank. This tank would be useful for supporting differing types of support craft refueling, fuel cell, and water production.