CH 03 / FEASIBILITY
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Tether load envelope
Atrium Orbital · Internal Review
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Key finding · structural model v4.2
The ribbon doesn't fail at the ground — it fails
where the atmosphere ends.
Tether tension profile · 0 – 100,000 km
Normalised load (T/T_yield) vs. altitude along ribbon axis
Carbon ribbon v4
Kevlar baseline (1979)
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
T / T_yield
0
10k
24k
36k
60k
100k
Altitude along ribbon · km
Karmán
GEO · 35,786 km
fails · 31,400 km
PEAK · 0.62
at GEO · 35,786 km
0.28 · entry of vacuum
counterweight · 100,000 km
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