Orbital Landing Vehicle (OLV or “Dropship”)

United States Space Force - North American Union Defense Coalition

Description:

The Orbital Landing Vehicle, or OLV and colloquially known as ‘dropships,’ are a type of trans-atmospheric shuttle designed primarily for use in one-way operations from orbit to the surface of a planetary body. They are a common component of space theater warfare, used in landing and rapid deployment operations.

The United States Space Force, and other armed forces of the North American Union Defense Coalition, utilize a fleet of standardized OLV in their Entry Descent Landing Battalion. The one depicted below is unit Sierra 15, of the 3rd EDL Group.

The standard OLV has a Reaction Control System for orbital maneuvering and a docking collar surrounding the deployable ramp in front of the vehicle. This allows for supply and personnel transfer between logistic vessels and landing craft.

A thermal protection system of tiles and replaceable composite ablator covers the bottom of the vehicle, enabling high-velocity atmosphere reentry. Four Descent Propulsion Units, using liquid metallic hydrogen and liquid oxygen, would propulsively bring the OLV to the ground on four deployable legs.

Idea:

The OLV is another piece in the worldbuilding of project Eleran Eclipse. I originally started work on this piece back in 2019 with some basic sketches in the note-taking app on my iPad. As the story of Eleran Eclipse takes place in space and on the ground, it was important for me to visualize what one of the vehicles used to move between the two would look like. The design of the OLV pulls a lot from the dropships and landers seen in The Expanse television series. I thought of ways to vary the design, but the more research I did, the more I realized that the clamshell-like design was the most rational, and the most realistic. Though this is judged on whatever, research I had previously done. How such vehicles might actually end up looking in the future will likely be different.

Process:

With the rough sketch done, I proceeded to creating the artwork in Adobe Illustrator. This was actually one of the first pieces to make use of textures to help accent the otherwise flat design. Much of the rest of the design and the workflow used to achieve the design can be seen in the other art pieces I have done.

After a long hiatus from this particular piece, I recently (circa 2022) got the rest of the art to completion, and to the point you see it now. While not the most spectacular piece, it was the first in a rethink of how I wanted to do my artwork.