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Description
This is part of my attempt to design realistic hard sci-fi ships which take a function before form design philosophy. This ship exists in my own fictional MegaWatt universe.

At the back, there are 8 Hyperion engines that are very efficient yet very power hungry. Their fuel is stored in a cylindrical tank running the length of the ship through the center of the cargo bay, and the fuel accounts for about 2/3 of the ship's mass. The fuel is Argon, which glows purple when heated and creates purple engine plumes. The thrust during interplanetary transit is very low to conserve fuel, but the engines stay on the entire time making use of their ability to exchange thrust for efficiency on the fly to be as efficient as possible.

At the bottom sits the crew quarters and living area, and below that hangs the bridge. The ship rolls as it flies to create artificial gravity for the crew, the centrifugal force points outwards from the center hence the need for all living space to be on the bottom. A typical cargo ship of this size would have a crew of 4-6 people.

At the top is the communications equipment. 2 high gain dishes provide interplanetary communication and 3 omnidirectional low gain antennas provide communication within the fleet. There is more than one of each kind for redundancy reasons. It's placed where it is to counter-balance the crew quarters, and internally it contains a lot of equipment such as backup oxygen tanks and the main computer.

At the left and right sides are the microwave receiver arrays, kept stowed and covered most of the time. The covers are often covered in painted details such as the ship's name and ID, paint on the rest of the ship is kept at a minimum to avoid compromising the ship's ability to reflect sunlight. When deployed, the microwave receiver arrays can be used to supplement the reactor's power output by receiving power beamed to it via a powerful microwave laser from a power relay station. This is usually used when first departing from a planet to give the ship a speed boost or when arriving at a planet to help it slow down. With more energy to work with the engines can become more powerful without sacrificing much if any efficiency, and the speed boost can dramatically reduce interplanetary transit times to as little as a few weeks when used in combination with continuous acceleration transfers.

At the front are 4 heat dissipation panels which radiate heat from the main reactor. If they get a hole in them, there is a grid of valves that can redirect coolant flow around the hole in a way that avoids coolant leakage while still making as much use of the panel's surface area as possible. The panels are black to maximize the amount of heat they can radiate, although they glow red with the heat of the coolant flowing through them. The radiators can partially stow by sliding into the ship towards the center, which is often done when the main reactor is not in use.

At the very front of the ship is the main reactor, kept far from the crew to minimize the amount of heavy radiation shielding it needs. The Tokamak fusion reactor uses Helium-3 and Deuterium as fuel and produces a large amount of power. The vast majority of it's output goes to the engines to maximize their thrust and efficiency throughout the entire interplanetary transit. The reactor is shut down when the ship needs to approach another ship or a station for safety reasons. There is a secondary auxiliary fission reactor with enough output to power essential systems and jump-start the fusion reactor. The fusion reactor has an emergency vent allowing it to eject it's fusing reactants into space in the event the reactor goes critical.

The cargo bay carries 1,984 standardized 2x2x6 meter containers. The bay is 20 containers long, 4 containers deep, and 32 containers around. This would give it a total capacity of 2,560 containers, but ship components sit where 576 of the containers would be. The containers are loaded with special loading docks found on most trade stations. The standardized containers can fit on most cargo rockets and cargo space planes, allowing them to be transported from the surface of one planet to the surface of another directly.

Description
This is part of my attempt to design realistic hard sci-fi ships which take a function before form design philosophy. This ship exists in my own fictional MegaWatt universe.

At the back, there are 8 Hyperion engines that are very efficient yet very power hungry. Their fuel is stored in a cylindrical tank running the length of the ship through the center of the cargo bay, and the fuel accounts for about 2/3 of the ship's mass. The fuel is Argon, which glows purple when heated and creates purple engine plumes. The thrust during interplanetary transit is very low to conserve fuel, but the engines stay on the entire time making use of their ability to exchange thrust for efficiency on the fly to be as efficient as possible.

At the bottom sits the crew quarters and living area, and below that hangs the bridge. The ship rolls as it flies to create artificial gravity for the crew, the centrifugal force points outwards from the center hence the need for all living space to be on the bottom. A typical cargo ship of this size would have a crew of 4-6 people.

At the top is the communications equipment. 2 high gain dishes provide interplanetary communication and 3 omnidirectional low gain antennas provide communication within the fleet. There is more than one of each kind for redundancy reasons. It's placed where it is to counter-balance the crew quarters, and internally it contains a lot of equipment such as backup oxygen tanks and the main computer.

At the left and right sides are the microwave receiver arrays, kept stowed and covered most of the time. The covers are often covered in painted details such as the ship's name and ID, paint on the rest of the ship is kept at a minimum to avoid compromising the ship's ability to reflect sunlight. When deployed, the microwave receiver arrays can be used to supplement the reactor's power output by receiving power beamed to it via a powerful microwave laser from a power relay station. This is usually used when first departing from a planet to give the ship a speed boost or when arriving at a planet to help it slow down. With more energy to work with the engines can become more powerful without sacrificing much if any efficiency, and the speed boost can dramatically reduce interplanetary transit times to as little as a few weeks when used in combination with continuous acceleration transfers.

At the front are 4 heat dissipation panels which radiate heat from the main reactor. If they get a hole in them, there is a grid of valves that can redirect coolant flow around the hole in a way that avoids coolant leakage while still making as much use of the panel's surface area as possible. The panels are black to maximize the amount of heat they can radiate, although they glow red with the heat of the coolant flowing through them. The radiators can partially stow by sliding into the ship towards the center, which is often done when the main reactor is not in use.

At the very front of the ship is the main reactor, kept far from the crew to minimize the amount of heavy radiation shielding it needs. The Tokamak fusion reactor uses Helium-3 and Deuterium as fuel and produces a large amount of power. The vast majority of it's output goes to the engines to maximize their thrust and efficiency throughout the entire interplanetary transit. The reactor is shut down when the ship needs to approach another ship or a station for safety reasons. There is a secondary auxiliary fission reactor with enough output to power essential systems and jump-start the fusion reactor. The fusion reactor has an emergency vent allowing it to eject it's fusing reactants into space in the event the reactor goes critical.

The cargo bay carries 1,984 standardized 2x2x6 meter containers. The bay is 20 containers long, 4 containers deep, and 32 containers around. This would give it a total capacity of 2,560 containers, but ship components sit where 576 of the containers would be. The containers are loaded with special loading docks found on most trade stations. The standardized containers can fit on most cargo rockets and cargo space planes, allowing them to be transported from the surface of one planet to the surface of another directly.