First proposed in 10.5 AS, the first orbital elevator ever built in deWulf space remains one of the largest construction projects ever taken up in corporate space. Still under construction almost four years later, the two stations have been completed, and the tether is slowly being spun in preparation for deployment. Even though Falke hasn’t completed the elevator (and begun to take advantage of having the cheapest ground to orbit costs in corporate space), Falke is already finding that planetary industry and traffic has been increasing in anticipation of the elevator’s opening.
The orbital station quickly picked up the name “Himmel”. Admittedly a rather uncreative name, it stuck enough that deWulf Heavy Industries gave up on trying to make their chosen name stick in the public sphere. Anchored by a massive nickel-iron asteroid as a counterweight, the core of the station at present remains the central cargo hub and a pair of freighter docks on either side of the hub. Each one is large enough to accept multiple Zweireiner-Class freighters, but is incapable of docking the larger Provider-Class freighters. It is expected that once the elevator is completed, additional docks will be built to accommodate larger ships. deWulf Heavy Industries is on record stating that they’re planning to build a terminal to service the Delft-Class heavy freighters once the tether has been put into service.
Orbital elevators are a staple in science fiction, but not so much for the Starfire universe. There’s a few random discoveries that can let you find them, but curiously there’s no mechanics for actually building one of these near-wonders. Still, it’s something that I couldn’t let go. As part of a small story bit, it was decided to attempt to build one of these gargantuan constructs on Falke. Given that it’s a smaller barren world (not unlike Mars), the lower gravity and size makes its construction a far simpler task. As much as one could call building an orbital elevator “simple”. And then one day I decided to do a bit of a sketch for the orbital station component…
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 