How to 'store' a spacecraft for a long-term expedition?

My first time here, hope this is a useful question. Mostly about orbital mechanics and vacuum.

So the crew of a general-purpose interstellar spacecraft have stumbled across a paradise planet. After extensive testing of the area, they decide to establish a colony. They land the spacecraft, offload all the crew and any supplies they need. They'll wind up being here for at least 20 Earth years.

The problem: the spacecraft would need regular maintenance within a gravity well - it has wings for atmospheric flight and landing gear that would be subject to very high forces. There's also the concern among the crew of corrosion to the metals should the ship be left for a long period of time. Maintenance requires power, which requires fuel, and although the ship has been 'tanked up', acquiring more fuel requires a reasonable interstellar journey, which would need many crew members to return to the ship. There's also the small subconscious idea that the crew don't want to be tempted to return to space, so they want the ship just out of reach, but should a catastrophe occur, they do want an escape route.

I've been thinking about parking the ship in orbit of the planet, but knowing atmospheric drag could eventually cause the orbit to degrade, would it be more appropriate to store the ship in a heliocentric orbit following the planet (if it's possible)? Either way, they want the ship to be in the exact condition it is now, located somewhere predictable, in 20 years' time with zero human intervention. Almost like storing an airliner in the 'bone yards' in Arizona, but assuming there isn't an equivalent on this planet, and the craft should be flyable again with minimal intervention.

There are auxiliary craft (with much lower maintenance requirements) that can manage interplanetary distances. The ship's atmosphere can be stored so the interior can become a vacuum. The ship's computer can be instructed to fly into whatever orbit or parking solution is chosen, but once power is shut off, a human would need to manually board the ship (using the aux craft) to reactivate it. Idle fuel consumption is too high for the generators to stay on even at minimum for the length of time, so the whole ship needs to be powered down. The ship has armour plating capable of withstanding average space debris and micrometeorites. The ship is very large, so building some kind of hangar or cocoon on the planet's surface wouldn't be very practical.

posted about 7 years ago

Gargravarr‭

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