An orbital propellant depot is a cache of propellant that is placed in orbit around Earth or another body to allow spacecraft or the transfer stage of the spacecraft to be fueled in space. It is one of the types of space resource depots that have been proposed for enabling infrastructure-based space exploration. Many depot concepts exist depending on the type of fuel to be supplied, location, or type of depot which may also include a propellant tanker that delivers a single load to a spacecraft at a specified orbital location and then departs. In-space fuel depots are not necessarily located near or at a space station. Potential users of in-orbit refueling and storage facilities include space agencies, defense ministries and communications satellite or other commercial companies. Satellite servicing depots would extend the lifetime of satellites that have nearly consumed their orbital maneuvering fuel and are likely placed in a geosynchronous orbit. The spacecraft would conduct a space rendezvous with the depot, or vice versa, and then transfer propellant to be used for subsequent orbital maneuvers. In 2011, Intelsat showed interest in an initial demonstration mission to refuel several satellites in geosynchronous orbit, but all plans have been since scrapped. A low Earth orbit (LEO) depot's primary function would be to provide propellant to a transfer stage headed to the Moon, Mars, or possibly a geosynchronous orbit. Since all or a fraction of the transfer stage propellant can be off-loaded, the separately launched spacecraft with payload and/or crew could have a larger mass or use a smaller launch vehicle. With a LEO depot or tanker fill, the size of the launch vehicle can be reduced and the flight rate increased—or, with a newer mission architecture where the beyond-Earth-orbit spacecraft also serves as the second stage, can facilitate much larger payloads—which may reduce the total launch costs since the fixed costs are spread over more flights and fixed costs are usually lower with smaller launch vehicles. A depot could also be placed at Earth-Moon Lagrange point 1 (EML-1) or behind the Moon at EML-2 to reduce costs to travel to the Moon or Mars. Placing a depot in Mars orbit has also been suggested. In 2024, on Starship’s third integrated flight, intravehicular propellant transfer in orbit was demonstrated, an intervehicle propellant transfer demonstration mission is planned for 2026, as this capability is critical for landing a crew on the Moon with the Starship HLS vehicle.
LEO depot fuels For rockets and space vehicles, propellants usually take up 2/3 or more of their total mass. Large upper-stage rocket engines generally use a cryogenic fuel like liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen (LOX) as an oxidizer because of the large specific impulse possible, but must carefully consider a problem called "boil off", or the evaporation of the cryogenic propellant. The boil off from only a few days of delay may not allow sufficient fuel for higher orbit injection, potentially resulting in a mission abort. Lunar or Mars missions will require weeks to months to accumulate tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of kilograms of propellant, so additional equipment may be required on the transfer stage or the depot to mitigate boiloff. Non-cryogenic, earth-storable liquid rocket propellants including RP-1 (kerosene), hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and mildly cryogenic, space-storable propellants like liquid methane and liquid oxygen, can be kept in liquid form with less boiloff than the cryogenic fuels, but also have lower specific impulse. Additionally, gaseous or supercritical propellants such as those used by ion thrusters include xenon, argon, and bismuth.
Propellant launch costs Ex-NASA administrator Mike Griffin commented at the 52nd AAS Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas, November 2005, that "at a conservatively low government price of $10,000 per kg in LEO, 250 [tonnes] of fuel for two missions per year is worth $2.5 billion, at government rates".
Cryogenic depot architectures and types In the depot-centric architecture, the depot is filled by tankers, and then the propellant is transferred to an upper stage prior to orbit insertion, similar to a gas station filled by tankers for automobiles. By using a depot, the launch vehicle size can be reduced and the flight rate increased. Since the accumulation of propellant may take many weeks to months, careful consideration must be given to boiloff mitigation. In simple terms, a passive cryogenic depot is a transfer stage with stretched propellant tanks, additional insulation, and a sun shield. In one concept, hydrogen boiloff is also redirected to reduce or eliminate liquid oxygen boiloff and then used for attitude control, power, or reboots. An active cryogenic depot is a passive depot with additional power and refrigeration equipment/cryocoolers to reduce or eliminate propellant boiloff. Other active cryogenic depot concepts include electrically powered attitude control equipment to conserve fuel for the end payload.
Heavy lift versus depot-centric architectures In the heavy lift architecture, propellant, which can be two-thirds or more of the total mission mass, is accumulated in fewer launches and possibly shorter time frame than the depot centric architecture. Typically the transfer stage is filled directly and no depot is included in the architecture. For cryogenic vehicles and cryogenic depots, additional boiloff mitigation equipment is typically included on the transfer stage, reducing payload fraction and requiring more propellant for the same payload unless the mitigation hardware is expended. Heavy Lift is compared with using Commercial Launch and Propellant Depots in this power point by Dr. Alan Wilhite given at FISO Telecon.
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