SPACEPHOTOS

An artist's concept of an Orbiting Lunar Station (OLS), one of the potential options for space activity being studied. The picture appeared in a September 1977 publication from the NASA-JSC Program Planning Office entitled A Compendium of Future Space Activities. This concept is not currently budgeted, and there are no plans for the construction of such hardware at this time. The objectives of such a station would be to perform a broad spectrum observation of the lunar surface; to conduct surface sorties and to support and control unmanned orbital and surface operations. The systems elements associated with the OLS concept include a space station, a lunar transport vehicle (LTV), resupply modules (RM), fluid module (FM), and crew transfer vehicles (CTV). Nine modules are required to provide ample space for a crew of eight, the subsystems and the consumables. A tenth module contains science equipment and sensors. A unitary OLS could also be employed and would require only one module for habitation rather than nine.