The Cislunar Vehicle (CV) is an important vehicle to get from Earth orbit to lunar orbit and back again.
It is astonishing to note that the CV concept is almost as old as NASA itself. It was designed to carry cargo and a crew to and from lunar and martian orbits (Image 1).
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| Image 1: A nuclear CV utilizing "saddle bag" propellant tanks |
The NASA CV was designed to be assembled, so each part had to fit inside the Space Shuttle payload bay so that it can be transported into outer space.
The CV would need to be refueled after each mission in keeping with the philosophy of reuse and commonality (Image 2).
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| Image 2: Again with the "saddlebag" propellant tanks |
Our CV, of course, will not use nuclear rockets but will use chemical rockets instead. We will also make use of "saddlebag" propellant tanks to extend our mission capabilities.
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