Abstract: An orbital tensile drive is herein disclosed, along with systems and methods associated therewith. The orbital tensile drive uses a tensile element that is conveyed around a static, fixed shaft and a rotating output shaft. This is facilitated via multiple orbiting idler pulleys that are mounted to an orbiter body. The static and rotating shafts, as well as the orbiting assembly, share a common axis. Input rotation to the orbiter body is transformed into lower-speed, higher-torque rotation at the rotating output shaft. The present invention has many potential applications including, but not limited to, robotics.