Orbital facilities and small starships

[casquilho]

I would expect a lot of less stylish home containers would congregate around Starport D and E, and most spaceports.

Maybe more like:

 

[aramis]

In Your Traveller Universe, are ships like Free Traders that are designed to enter atmosphere also capable of docking externally to a High Port to transfer cargo, or do they rely on being able to completely enter a pressurisable bay?

There are several ways to dock... mated doors (like NASA currently uses with the International Standard Docking Connector), hardpoint locks (like shuttle cargo used to be), cradles, gantry framwork systems with inner pressure tube, gantry systems with full gantry pressurization (and locking lugs, with an expandable pressure seal), solid gantry with secondary inner tube (belt and suspenders approach), open cradle, cradle with covers, collars (like ANNIC NOVA's outer ports), partial entry bays (such as the ANNIC NOVA has for the center), full cradle bays (cradle behind a door) open bays...

I've always assumed that the standard airlock door is also a genderless docking adapter...
And, based upon TTA, that there is in fact a standard airlock template for standard containers. And the single container lock types that are less universal but as genderless... and that the airlock can be moved to be proud of the curvature in rectangular form, so that two Type R's can pull lock to lock and transfer in orbit, and that some surface shuttles have the same hardware specifically for on-orbit delivery. (This does mean, given the curvature, the airlock cannot hold a full container when retracted - the outer door is not full width clear to full height.)