12 Facts About Lunar Gateway

Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is a planned small space station in lunar orbit intended to serve as a solar-powered communication hub, science laboratory, short-term habitation module for government-agency astronauts, as well as a holding area for rovers and other robots.

Science disciplines to be studied on the Lunar Gateway are expected to include planetary science, astrophysics, Earth observation, heliophysics, fundamental space biology, and human health and performance.

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group, which is composed of more than 14 space agencies including all the major ones, has concluded that Lunar Gateway will be critical in expanding human presence to the Moon, Mars, and deeper into the Solar System.

The solar electric Power and Propulsion Element of the Lunar Gateway was originally a part of the now-canceled Asteroid Redirect Mission.

NASA unveiled the name of the lunar-orbit space station in November 2019, and the Gateway is with its name and logo associated with the American frontier symbol of the St Louis Gateway Arch.

Related searches

Lunar Gateway will be the first modular space station to be both human-rated, and autonomously operating most of the time in its early years, as well as being the first deep-space station, far from low Earth orbit.

Concept for the Lunar Gateway is still evolving, and is intended to include the following modules:.

However, the Lunar Gateway has received both positive and negative reactions from space professionals.

Michael D Griffin, a former NASA administrator, said that the Gateway could be useful only after there are facilities on the Moon producing propellant that could be transported to the Gateway.

Former NASA Associate Administrator Doug Cooke wrote in an article on The Hill stating, "NASA can significantly increase speed, simplicity, cost and probability of mission success by deferring Lunar Gateway, leveraging SLS, and reducing critical mission operations".

Lunar Gateway added that it was not planned to be used as a rocket fuel depot and that stopping at the Gateway on the way to or from the Moon would serve no useful purpose and cost propellant.

Lunar Gateway's final opinion was that the Gateway is "a great way to spend a great deal of money, advancing science and humanity in no appreciable way".