Sherpa Rocket

I would like the combine some of my previous proposals into a mini rocket concept. It is a derivative of Hop on Hop off rocket I proposed earlier. The objective is to design a rocket that can refill its propellant tanks from the resources available on the celestial body the rocket is functioning at. A nuclear battery will be utilized for this purpose. The tanks may take weeks to be filled completely depending on the environment.

I named the rocket after the valuable people of Nepal, who did the hard work so that the explorers could concentrate on their scientific research. Commemorating “Tenzing Norgay”. The sherpa rocket would have four liquid rocket engines attached outside its shell. The rocket should need to generate enough thrust on takeoff with propellant tanks full and maximum payload. It would be a single stage rocket. Its main duty is to hand over the samples collected on the surface to an orbiting rocket which would take them back to earth. Once the handover is complete, sherpa would return back to the surface and start refilling its tanks before the next mission.

The payload bay will be at the top of the rocket. A crane inside the payload bay will retrieve the samples from the surface. An explorer robot will be used to search and collect samples. This robot will also load and unload the crane on the surface. The explorer robot will be carried to the celestial body with the very first mission. Earth transporter will also bring some items with every mission. So, the on-orbit hand over will be a two-way exchange.

Sherpa rocket will also be used to navigate on the celestial body. In that case the surface explorer will be retrieved to the payload bay and the rocket will fly to a new search area and land again. As a result, much larger area will be researched.