NASA is firming up its plans to build a space station called Gateway around the moon, a key piece of the new US mission to land astronauts on the moon鈥檚 south pole聽by 2024.
The space agency announced that they have contracted with Colorado-based Maxar Technologies to build the power and propulsion element, a solar-powered spacecraft that will be able to manoeuvre the Gateway lunar space station around the moon. Maxar Technologies specialises in satellites and space robotics.
鈥淭hink of it as a reusable command and service module that will be in orbit around the moon for 15 years. The first element is the power and propulsion element,鈥� said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at a press conference on 23 May. The plan is to launch it in 2022.
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The Gateway is planned to sit in a stable orbit around the moon, kept there by the gravity of Earth and the moon, but it will have thrusters to allow the station to move into different orbits so astronauts can land at various points on the moon. The power and propulsion element uses solar panels to charge the thrusters, which cuts down on the weight of fuel needed.
Bridenstine said Gateway will not be as large as the International Space Station, but will serve as a small habitat where astronauts can dock and enter lunar landers to reach the surface of the moon. The spacecraft needed to travel from Gateway to low lunar orbit and then go to and from the moon鈥檚 surface do not exist yet, and NASA has not announced when they will be built and tested or which commercial companies may be involved in their production.
Hitting the 2024 target will be a difficult task, and to do it, Bridenstine said Gateway will include only the power and propulsion element as well as a small module with living quarters for astronauts.
NASA has named the missions to the moon the Artemis program, after the Greek moon goddess and twin sister of Apollo 鈥� the namesake of the US lunar program of the 1960s and 1970s. Bridenstine said Artemis will take three initial phases: an uncrewed flight around the moon using NASA鈥檚 SLS rocket and Orion capsule, a crewed mission to orbit the moon and test life support systems in 2022, and a crewed mission to the Gateway and down to the lunar surface in 2024. Both SLS and Orion are still in development, and the rocket has never flown.
The question of which rockets will be ready in five years to take astronauts to lunar orbit has been heavily debated, but Bridenstine was firm that NASA鈥檚 own rockets will do that work. 鈥淪LS and Orion is the only system that gives us any chance at getting there in 2024,鈥� he said.
