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Traffic Control

What level of "traffic control" would need to be exercised over the movement of vessels in the space around a planet?

Would there be controlled / defined entry and exit jump points? Military / Civilian lanes? Lanes based on size of vessel? Nearerer to the planet or orbital station/s I would imagine there would need to be some form of control?
 
The short answer is yes.

IMHO, just like the various size of airports/strips around the world have varying degrees of traffic control, so too would the size of the population, and so the amount of ship traffic, define the various degree of traffic control.
 
I've often thought that systems-sectors with high volumes of traffic, both inbound and outbound, might have a 'layered' traffic control system controlled from different locations in said locales.

A given there would be a facility that handles all traffic approaching-departing any-all high-ports or other orbital facilities above the primary world, let's call this 'air' traffic control.

A separate 'tower' would be responsible for traffic between the surface of said world and the orbital platforms, perhaps refer to such as ground control.

Lastly would be some authority that 'stages' the outbound ships preparing for jump, such given flight-paths to avoid the 'incoming' traffic of vessels soon to arrive from J-space.

Of course in systems-sectors having infrequent traffic would likely have all 'levels' of direction come from one authority.
 
for me, a class D or E starport has a single satellite in a geostationary orbit above the starport, set to broadcast "welcome to Example! you are required to proceed to the starport at 12 degrees north of the equator at this longitude for arrival and customs" (or some similar message that tells them where to go). a Class C or above should have a manned orbital control centre of some sort, which assigns a incoming ship a orbital altitude and "slot", and clears ships for landing/docking with highport/departure.

I think that level of sensors on a normal star ship would be sufficient that it could navigate form orbit to jump point without needing ground guidance (unlike most modern airplanes, which don't have extensive radar systems, to my knowledge.)
 
for me, a class D or E starport has a single satellite in a geostationary orbit above the starport, set to broadcast "welcome to Example! you are required to proceed to the starport at 12 degrees north of the equator at this longitude for arrival and customs" (or some similar message that tells them where to go). ...

Kinda depends on the local circumstances. I can't see some little world whose total population wouldn't fill a high school auditorium spending money on a satellite to direct the occasional passer-by to the only town on the planet. Likewise, some low tech world might not want to spend money importing off-world satellite tech when the occasional visitor is quite competent to home in on a simple ground-based beacon. On the other hand, some restrictive government who'd as soon arrest you as look at you might put up a satellite to make sure you land where they can keep an eye on you - and might be inclined to call out their air force if you don't.

Maybe Hangar 18 is a secret Class-E starport where the gub'mint can make sure the occasional visitor to Sol system doesn't have contact with us locals. :smirk:

What kind of traffic control you need depends on what kind of traffic you have. We were debating the question of traffic volume elsewhere. There was, not surprisingly, some disagreement over numbers, but the estimates ranged from 50 or so a day for the very most active ports to no more than a couple a year - in a good year - for the more isolated places. Coordinating 50 or so ships a day is not a particularly difficult feat, but Earth has had mid-air collisions since 1922, under circumstances and in volumes of air in which you'd have thought a collision was pretty unlikely. (Which, in the final analysis, is why many of them occurred.) And, you want to make sure the inbound or outbound traffic does not run afoul of your satellites or, if landing, your aircraft. There are also some governments who are downright finicky about where strangers set down their ships.

For ports that might see no more than one ship or so a day, traffic control may consist of little more than an open frequency where the inbound ship can call in and say, "I'm here," so the local port official can take time from his other job and get to the port in time to meet the inbound captain. For worlds with significant local tech and population but little space traffic, it might also include instructions that keep him clear of local satellites and, if landing, aircraft; the pilot may actually spend more time talking to air traffic controllers handling the various air space regions he flies through on the way to the downport. It's only likely to get more complicated than that at a handful of worlds that have to deal with more than one ship in space at any given time, places like Mora, Glisten and Rhylanor.
 
In the process of looking at the scale of trade the conclusion I came to was trade (by volume) would be concentrated in a c. 5 parsec radius cluster around the main alpha planets like Glisten, which would also be hubs for the high value long distance trade *and* likely to have a lot of in-system traffic as well so it looked to me that systems like Glisten could have masses of ships zooming around at very fast speeds and an extremely complex air traffic control network but most other systems much less so.

Loading and maintaining a minimal navigational "buoy" system for this purpose in lesser systems might be another job for the scouts.
 
... it looked to me that systems like Glisten could have masses of ships zooming around at very fast speeds and an extremely complex air traffic control network ...

Air traffic control? Or orbital traffic control? If the latter then from the numbers we've projected so far, I'm not seeing it, even if we assume a good deal of insystem traffic. Orbital space is huge. All you really need to do is assume everyone is orbiting in the same direction at the same altitude. The only trick is making sure that orbit is different from the ones used by the bulk of your orbital satellites and making sure the inbound ship has the orbit info on any other satellites and ships/craft that might be in his vicinity as he comes in. At that point it's no more complex than merging onto a very, very, very lightly traveled freeway - with your own computer to instruct you and point out problems, to boot.
 
... Orbital space is huge.

True, I may not be accounting enough for that. I was picturing a lot of in-system traffic in addition to the external traffic and lanes similar to sea lanes between the most-traveled points in the system and all lanes converging on a single spot at very fast speeds.
 
A few of the worlds IMTU, specifically those that were high-traffic destinations, did not allow the majority of inbound ships to dock at orbital facilities, rather such would off-load further out in the system at mid-range positioned 'industrial' parks.

Essentially there was a sort of 'business-bypass' cordoning of the heavy traffic of cargo-haulers to an outer-loop where transfer facilities operated.

Mind dedicated passenger liners and ships under certain tonnages would be allowed to travel to high ports directly, the big freighters would off-load further out-system with 'local' transports moving cargo between the two points.
 
A few of the worlds IMTU, specifically those that were high-traffic destinations, did not allow the majority of inbound ships to dock at orbital facilities, rather such would off-load further out in the system at mid-range positioned 'industrial' parks. ...

That might be a necessity for systems in which the local solar jump shadow dominates the primary world.
 
I like the idea of mid ranged industrial stations situated at the solar jump radius. Not only would it be a less crowded point than a main planet, it would also be a good station position for intrasystem, non jump capable ships to operate from. Things like mining ships, fuel skimmers, or law enforcement/search and rescue could dock, off/on load cargo, etc without getting in the way of the main planet. Then dedicated shuttles could move cargo from the industrial stations to the main planet for processing.
 
Some worlds may mandate such mid-range positioned facilities as a way of generating additional tariffs and create-support an economic base of in-system haulers, such benefiting said governments or trade alliances.
 
I like the idea of mid ranged industrial stations situated at the solar jump radius. Not only would it be a less crowded point than a main planet, it would also be a good station position for intrasystem, non jump capable ships to operate from. Things like mining ships, fuel skimmers, or law enforcement/search and rescue could dock, off/on load cargo, etc without getting in the way of the main planet. Then dedicated shuttles could move cargo from the industrial stations to the main planet for processing.

It increases costs by a couple hundred credits per ton if done at both ends.
 
It increases costs by a couple hundred credits per ton if done at both ends.


Such might be an 'incentive' to join a union or some-such that allows 'direct-transfer' to orbital facilities, avoiding the cost of fees from additional 'handling and less delay in delivery-arrival times of freight.
 
Such might be an 'incentive' to join a union or some-such that allows 'direct-transfer' to orbital facilities, avoiding the cost of fees from additional 'handling and less delay in delivery-arrival times of freight.

I'm not including handling fees, I'm just noting that in system shipping adds up. If it's more than about 2 days, it's still cheaper than flying the jump-capable ship in itself.
 
Ok as a Pilot I know some about traffic control. What we have now are as follows.

1) Ground: These are the guys that control well movement on the ground from ramps to the hold short line on the runway.

2)Tower: Controls traffic 5nm around the airport and up to 3000' agl

3)Approach: Only the big airports actually have these and it does depend on the size of the airport how far they control. As a note if you do file an Insturment flight plan theycontrol a bigger chunk of airspace say 25nm out. Not sure of the exact area but its a decent size.

4) Center: these guys control BIG chunks of airspace up roughly 80,000'. Not manyaround and there is Miami, Atlanta, Washington, NY and Boston up the East coast.

Stuff you might want to add

5) Orbital: for well the stuff in Orbit

6) System: for the stuff way out there entering or exiting Jump Space maybe.

Note there can also be approach for high ports and maybe just one guy doing it all at a D or E.
 
STC (System)
OTC (Orbital)
not sure what Tower or Starport TC would be called.
I would suggest the minimum human staff would be 2, as air crashes have happened because people can be sick, late, go to the toilet or mix up their rota.

Most ATC would be run by bots of sufficient tech level, with just the two supervisors.

I imagine multiple ways to track vessels, a bit like transponders, ACARS, or in some cases sensing operational radar equipment and other types of materials or systems on board. Evading STC would be difficult without the right equipment, or with certain systems on board. Presumably a ship exiting hyperspace would easily alert controllers, if visible. Maybe systems would not work like radar, but rely on light, heat or some other quantity.

Presumably the military also would have their own systems of tracking and control. There was a notable crash in Russia when a Polish civilian jet carrying the leader tried to land at a Russian military base, there were language and system compatability issues. ILS did not work at the fighter/bomber base.

Both Russia and America have shot down airliners. In the case of the USS Vincennes, it was exacerbated by a radar operator wrongly reporting the airliner descending, thus fitting an attack profile. The warning message was ignored because the jet's speed was incorrectly read, again a measurement difference between aerospace and naval systems, nautical miles/knots and air miles/knots.
I wonder about hulks, derelicts, comets, asteroids and so forth, these all would need tracking and controlling also.
 
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