Interplanetary Logistics: Transportation Challenges and Supply Chain Lessons From Space Exploration

ABSTRACT

This conceptual paper examines interplanetary logistics as an extreme analytical case for transportation and supply chain theory—one that exposes a largely unexamined assumption embedded in most resilience research: that when disruption occurs, recovery is eventually possible. In space operations, that assumption is not available. Removing it does not merely stress‐test existing theory; it reveals which parts were resting on borrowed ground. The paper integrates insights from transportation resilience, closed‐loop logistics, autonomous operations, and hub‐based network design into a conceptual framework organized around four interdependent design drivers: redundancy, closed‐loop sustainability, autonomous and adaptive operations, and hub‐based network architecture. It also argues that framing circularity as a “sustainability” objective may obscure what closed‐loop capability actually is in any resource‐constrained system—not an environmental aspiration, but operational competence. Four propositions clarify how transportation and supply chain systems must be structured when resupply is uncertain, failure is difficult to reverse, and continuity depends on self‐sufficiency not typically required in terrestrial networks. Implications for Earth‐based systems are treated as secondary, with relevance for humanitarian logistics, Arctic operations, and military supply environments.