Skyflower: A Reusable Tethered Lunar Landing System

As part of the Artemis program’s broader objective to establish a long-term human and robotic presence on the Moon, NASA and its partners must overcome the significant challenge of delivering substantial payload mass to the lunar surface. While commercial partnerships under programs like CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) and HLS (Human Landing System) have made progress, these efforts primarily address small-scale payload delivery or crewed missions. The current state of the art lacks dedicated solutions for high-mass, uncrewed cargo delivery—a critical gap for enabling infrastructure deployment, in-situ resource utilization, and sustained lunar operations. This thesis investigates Skyflower, a conceptual reusable lunar landing system specifically designed to address this need. Skyflower reimagines the architecture of planetary cargo delivery by adapting the tethered offloading approach used in the Martian Skycrane. By deploying cargo from a hovering lander via tether, the system minimizes plume-surface interaction (PSI) and improves landing precision in complex terrain. The lander is designed for reusability and is integrated into a broader operational framework centered on the Lunar Gateway. This orbital hub supports payload handling, refueling, and maintenance, enabling Skyflower to function as part of a sustainable logistics network in cis-lunar space. Unlike conventional systems that prioritize surface-based infrastructure and one-way missions, Skyflower emphasizes orbital coordination, system longevity, and modularity. The research employs an iterative systems engineering (SE) approach modeled on NASA’s lifecycle processes, progressing from stakeholder needs to system architecture and subsystem-level definitions. Through multiple design iterations, this thesis advances the technical detail of the lander’s key subsystems, including propulsion, guidance and navigation, tether deployment, and payload handling. While the current design remains at a conceptual level, future work must focus on detailed computational simulations, environmental modeling, and physical testing to increase the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the system. Ultimately, Skyflower represents a forward-looking approach to scalable lunar logistics, offering a path toward more efficient and reusable cargo transport solutions on the Moon.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Aerospace Engineering

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Testi, Corrado 1989-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Bannova, Olga

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Bell, Larry
• Toups, Larry

• Mechanical engineering
• Aerospace engineering

Language dc:language.iso

English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/19514

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/19514