The Caravan Transport carries several hundred people on long-duration, deep interplanetary missions. The transport is pushed by several (4-10) shuttle escorts. These ‘Dagger Skiffs‘ also provide defensive capabilities.
‘Dagger Skiff‘ Escort/Shuttle Characteristics:
- Size : 32 m (length) x ~ 14 m (width) x ~ 4m (height)
- Mass:
- unfueled: 6,000 kg
- fully fueled: 17,000 kg
- Powerplant: h-torch ignited fusion
- Atmospheric propulsion: Magneto Hydro Dynamic Ionisation Boundary Flow
- Vacuum propulsion: direct fusion
- Max acceleration: ~15g (max permissible acceleration with human crew 6g sustained)
- Defensive systems:
- Precision Standoff and Point Defense, Directed Energy Weapons
- Adaptive Directional Magnetic Confinement Plasma Shielding
- Zeno-cognition active Information Warfare and exploit database
‘Caravan Transport’ Characteristics:
- Size : 200 m (length) x ~ 12 m (width) x ~ 12m (height)Mass:
- unfueled: 190,000 kg
- fully fueled: 2,200,000 kg
- Powerplant: h-torch ignited fusion plant.
- Propulsion: high specific impulse vacuum ion thruster or coupled with ‘Dagger Skiffs’ for extended and high delta-v mission profiles.
- Max acceleration:
- using onboard ion-drive: 0.2 milligees
- fully fueled and loaded with constellation of 4 ‘dagger-skiffs’: 0.7g
- typical mission profile: 0.1g
- Defensive systems:
- Point Defense Directed Energy Weapons
- Adaptive Directional Magnetic Confinement Plasma Shielding
- Zeno-cognition active Information Warfare and exploit database
- Primary defensive capabilities supplied by ‘dagger-skiff’ escorts
The ‘Caravan Transport‘ switches between a thrust-phase and coast-phase configuration. In the thrust-phase, the habitation modules are aligned with the axis of thrust. Acceleration in the range 0f 0.1 – 0.4g provides inertial gravity. In the coast-phase configuration, the habitation modules are deployed in a classic rotating hoop configuration generating spin-gravity for passengers and crew.
