A Human-in-the-Loop Utility Station for Orbital Debris Remediation, On-Orbit Servicing, and Circular Space Operations

This paper proposes OSH-1, a permanently or semi-permanently crewed orbital utility station that supports active debris remediation, inspection, servicing, end-of-life disposal, and eventual material recovery. The concept is intentionally conservative about novelty. Human satellite retrieval, station-based debris-removal concepts, robotic rendezvous, magnetic capture, prepared docking interfaces, multi-client servicing, regenerative life support, and in-orbit circular-economy studies all have substantial prior art. OSH-1 therefore does not claim invention of those components. Its contribution is a systems synthesis: a human-in-the-loop operational base that combines crew habitation, robotic debris-servicer fleets, standardized Design-for-Removal interfaces, external quarantine and work bays, route-optimized multi-target operations, public provenance and authorization records, and fail-closed safety rules into one utility-service architecture. [1]-[13]

The design question is not whether a person can physically grab an object in space. Astronauts proved that in 1984. The design question is how to make orbital stewardship routine, safe, legally authorized, economically supportable, and boring enough to become infrastructure rather than spectacle.