Establishing a crewed habitat on the Moon is a critical milestone in extending human presence beyond low Earth orbit. Although international programs such as NASA’s Artemis program and ESA’s Terrae Novae have established strategic goals for lunar exploration, systematic frameworks are still needed to identify, prioritize, and sequence the technologies required for lunar habitat construction. This study develops an evidence-informed technology prioritization and roadmapping framework by integrating classification, expert-survey prioritization, and semantic-relatedness analysis. Based on national and international roadmaps and Korean technology-planning records, 87 construction-oriented technologies were classified into six operation-oriented categories: Site Investigation, Base Design, Construction & Assembly, Construction Materials, In-Situ Resource Utilization, and Safety and O&M. A two-stage expert survey involving 55 participants from industry, academia, and research institutes evaluated the technologies across four planning criteria. The analysis produced a category-balanced set of 12 representative technologies and score-distribution-based upper-priority groups. Sentence-BERT embeddings of the technology definition records were then used to construct an undirected semantic-relatedness network. Community and centrality analyses identified description-level semantic groupings and candidate bridge technologies for subsequent expert evaluation, rather than validated engineering dependencies. Using the survey results together with technology-readiness annotations, documented roadmap timing, and planning or support relationships, a five-phase roadmap for 2025–2045+ and an illustrative metal-module lunar-base scenario were developed. The roadmap provides a structured basis for Korea’s national R&D planning. The integrated procedure can be adapted for other national or multilateral planning contexts, whereas the specific priorities, phase assignments, and policy milestones reflect Korea’s expert panel, industrial context, and national space policy.
Interstellar travel appears increasingly likely in the coming decades. It is therefore interesting to consider some possible mission options. This paper considers a propellant saving strategy at the expense of an extreme gravitational environment. High speed interstellar missions suffering propellant constraints could beneficially target close flybys at a black hole to achieve large trajectory deflections and return to Earth. Analysis requires a general relativistic (GR) framework to achieve accurate solution. Close flyby of a black hole on an unbound trajectory results in deflections of the asymptotic velocity that significantly differ from Keplerian predictions. The general trajectory solutions for geodesic motions in GR are well known. This paper examines in detail a subset of this range of motions. Key characteristics such as tidal gravity effects, flyby durations and sensitivity are evaluated to understand spacecraft implications. Solution scaling with black hole mass is investigated. A trajectory design methodology is described. Solving the GR geodesic equations is possible with numerical integration or elliptic integrals. An alternative, versatile solution process employs Gauss’s variational equations (GVEs), formulated with respect to true anomaly. Numerical integration of the full GVEs provides an exact solution. Using a specified order of truncation in the ratio of Schwarzschild radius to pericentre radius in the GVEs allows approximate analytical integrals to be found. The flyby deflection can be modelled in terms of osculating orbital element change and osculating asymptotic conditions, defined by the approaching hyperbolic orbit. A 180 degree target is set. First-and second-order analytical estimates suffer degraded prediction accuracy for higher speed cases, where pericentres are only a few Schwarzschild radii. They provide a good initial solution estimate, before using numerical integration when greater accuracy is required. This problem also serves as a vehicle for developing analytical approximations for motion close to a black hole.
Modular deployable mechanisms serve as key supporting components for large-scale structures such as space antennas, and their surface accuracy directly determines the in-orbit performance of the antennas. This study focuses on a hexagonal prism deployable antenna. By integrating matrix-based modeling with machine learning, a surface accuracy model that incorporates multi-source errors is established, and the accuracy is substantially improved. First, the multi-factor error sources are unified into an equivalent model described in matrix form. By introducing multi-closed-loop coordination constraints, a sub-chain error model is constructed based on the matrix method, and the position errors of all nodes in the assembled network structure are derived according to the error propagation law. Sensitivity analysis of parameters such as hinge clearances to errors is conducted, and machine learning algorithms are employed to perform collaborative optimization of the error parameters. The antenna accuracy performance is enhanced through globally optimal allocation of the error sources. Finally, a single-rib accuracy experimental platform is built to verify the influence of temperature rise on the rib tip accuracy. By adjusting hinge clearances and link lengths, the tip accuracy under multiple clearance and link-length conditions is tested. The experimental results validate the reliability of the accuracy modeling theory. This research provides a systematic analysis framework and optimization strategy for the high-precision design of modular deployable antennas, which is of great significance for improving the application performance of modular antenna systems in the aerospace field.
Early Mars outposts will require consumable chemicals—disinfectants, solvents, cleaning agents—that cannot be replenished between infrequent resupply missions. Parasitic ISRU is introduced: a systems-engineering concept in which secondary chemical production is hosted on existing propellant infrastructure and governed by explicit life-support subordination gates. The Ethanol Technology for Outpost Habitability (ETOH) framework defines power, water, CO2-priority, and quality gates. Its hardware instantiation, the Logistics-Optimized Generation Unit for Ethanol (LOGUE-10), produces ≥ 95% v/v ethanol via electrochemical CO2 reduction, drawing ≈1.2% of installed outpost power (1.15% duty-cycle-weighted; ≈3.6% of the post-propellant surplus). A 669-sol governance simulation on a 2 × 40 kWe fission surface-power baseline with stochastic dust storms yields 342.8 L (15.6 L/month) at an optimistic operating point (30% FE, 2.5 V); at the same 1 kW cap the conservative basis (25% FE, 3.5 V) scales to ≈204 L/year, while the 1.7 kW sizing draw preserves the 10 L/month design capacity. The reactor is active on 95.4% of sols with no LOGUE-10–attributable life-support compromise, enforced by the priority stack by construction. A dust-storm Monte Carlo confirms storm-invariant output (345.2 ± 2.6 L/year); a second Monte Carlo over production drivers—Faradaic efficiency, host-plant uptime, electrode degradation—centers expected output on the 10 L/month target (220 L/sol-year, 229 L/Earth-year), with an available ethanol stream produced in every realization. These results establish architecture-level feasibility for governed parasitic ISRU, and the governance architecture generalizes beyond ethanol.
This paper confronts public funding mechanisms in the New Space Economy (NSE). NSE refers to the rise of private actors’ activities in space; however, public funding remains crucial. Addressing this issue, this paper critically compares Public Procurement - an order from the public sector - and public-private partnership (PPP) - i.e., a long-term agreement between public and private actors for the provision of public services or goods - with the final aim of highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and applicability in the NSE. We compare both models to underline differences and benefits, and contend that public procurement is advantageous for both public and private actors. Governments retain public control over space programmes on the one side, while private firms reduce risks on the other. Our results inform public decision-makers with a critical discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the two models in the context of the NSE. The paper concludes that the supposed privatization of space is far from happening and that private actors would not have entered the space economy without public procurement.
