Tug Pro

thebardchat

Reusable orbital tug — interactive concept brief (Astro + Svelte + Three.js)

tug-pro

Pre-Phase A concept brief for TUG — a reusable orbital tug that catches rail-launched ballistic payloads at apogee and ferries them to lunar transfer.

A successor to thebardchat/tug. Same concept, much-deeper site:

3D orbit visualizer — Three.js scene showing rail → apogee → catch → TLI → lunar SOI → return. Scrubbable timeline with real period ratios.
Live ΔV calculator — Tsiolkovsky over a stacked phase budget. Tune payload, apogee, Isp, dry mass, margin; watch propellant move.
Mass + power budget — toggleable per-subsystem bars sorted by share.
Subsystem dossier — expandable cards with TRL, mass, power, watch-items.
Risks matrix — interactive 5×5 likelihood × consequence with mitigations.
Field comparison — TUG alongside MEV-1, MEP, ACES/Centaur V, Starship-as-tug.

Stack

Astro (static + islands)
Svelte for interactive islands
Three.js for the orbit scene
TypeScript strict, no build framework runtime overhead beyond what each island ships

Run

npm install
npm run dev      # http://localhost:4321
npm run build    # static output to ./dist
npm run preview  # serve ./dist

Layout

src/
  layouts/   Layout.astro            — shell + fonts + meta
  components/ Header / Hero / StatusStrip / ConOpsTimeline /
              SubsystemDossier / CompareTable
  islands/   OrbitVisualizer.svelte  — Three.js scene (client:only)
              DeltaVCalculator.svelte
              MassPowerBudget.svelte
              RisksMatrix.svelte
  data/      mission / subsystems / risks / compare
  lib/       rocket-eq / orbit  — math helpers
  styles/    tokens / global

Mission baseline

Single source of truth in src/data/mission.ts. Tweaking the canonical values propagates through the dossier, the calculator's "vs preset" delta, and the displayed totals.

License

The original tug repo's terms apply; nothing in here is a flight-qualified design.

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