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NASA Shows All Elements of Lunar Space Station Gateway, And It's Impressive

As humanity is getting ready to return to the Moon, it made it clear that this time we're not going there just as visitors, but as colonists. Sure, the early missions of the Artemis program will limit themselves to landing astronauts and getting them back home, but in the long run, for the first time in history, we are pursuing permanent bases around and on the surface.
NASA Gateway integrated configuration 11 photos
Photo: NASA Gateway Program/Twitter
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A lunar outpost (or more) is being envisioned as the stepping stone for future missions to Mars, because it will be a lot easier to launch them from there than from Earth. To do that, we’ll probably need hardware both in orbit around the satellite, and on the dusty surface.

The hardware that will float round and round the place is for now called, fittingly, Gateway. Previewed by the American space agency all the way back in 2018, it had an initial launch date for the power and propulsion element (PPE) planned sometime this year, but it’s obvious now that’s not going to happen.

Delays are only natural in space exploration (the launch of the James Webb telescope, for instance, was postponed time and again for no less than 14 years), and they don’t mean NASA has given up on the Gateway plans. To remind us of that, the space agency released this week an image showing each and every element of what promises to be a historically important space station, together with their manufacturers.

As per the info provided, SpaceX is tasked with launching the station’s elements. Maxar will be making the PPE we mentioned earlier, Northrop Grumman (together with the European and Japanese space agencies, ESA and JAXA) the habitation and logistic outpost (HALO), and SpaceX the logistics module.

NASA itself is responsible for creating and operating the Orion spaceship that will ferry astronauts to the station, while the European Space Agency will contribute the European service module, the refueler, and, together with JAXA, the International Habitat (I-HAB).

The project is yet to determine a manufacturer for the Human Landing System (HLS) that will take humans down to the Moon’s surface, and the airlock.

At the time of writing, NASA targets the launch of the PPE and HALO on the same mission, so sooner than November 2024.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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