By the time the United States hits the 54-year anniversary of the original moon landing, NASA hopes to have a place ready for astronauts to live and work near the lunar surface.
The project, called the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, would operate similarly to the International Space Station. But instead of orbiting Earth, the lunar platform will orbit the moon.
And if all goes as planned, it would be ready for human habitation by 2023.
The platform would “help us further explore the moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars,” Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s acting administrator, said in his State of NASA address earlier this month.
The lunar gateway was one of several projects funded in President Donald Trump’s $19.9 billion NASA budget proposal for fiscal year 2019, which places a heavy emphasis on human exploration.
The budget plan allocates $10.5 billion to human exploration, while cutting a number of climate change-related missions and the agency’s $99.3 million education office.
About $2.7 billion would go toward building the platform through the 2023 fiscal year under Trump’s proposal, with $504.2 million set aside in the coming year. Congress still must approve the budget.
Much like the current space station where astronauts have lived for 18 years, the platform would be assembled over time. The power and propulsion element is targeted for launch in 2022. This element would use solar electric propulsion to keep the gateway in the appropriate position in space. It also would provide space-to-Earth, space-to-lunar and spacecraft-to-spacecraft communications, as well as support communication for spacewalks. Lasers would be used to transfer large datasets, meaning it would happen at a much faster rate, according to a Feb. 13 NASA web post.
The habitation part of the platform is targeted to launch one year later, in 2023. This would allow crews to live and work there for 30 to 60 days at a time, according to NASA. It also could act as a stop-over for astronauts traveling deeper into space to Mars, for example.
Crews onboard the platform would conduct science experiments, as well as explore both around the moon and on the lunar surface. The gateway also would be designed to allow astronauts to conduct spacewalks and dock future elements, similar to what happened during construction of the current space station.
Trump’s budget appears to be pushing toward a more commercial presence in space travel.
For example, his budget would end federal funding for the International Space Station after 2024, the year funding for the space station is already scheduled to stop. Instead, the space station’s continued life would depend on commercial entities taking over.
The proposed lunar platform also would call on commercial ties.
Right now, a number of U.S. companies are participating in studies on how to develop the two separate elements, the habitat and power and propulsion elements. Boeing of Houston is involved in both.
In August 2016, six companies including Boeing were tapped to develop full-sized ground prototypes for deep space habitats.
The intent “is to have as much realism in the habitation module as possible, by integrating all the racks and human factors, from galleys to sleep stations, glove boxes and command and control systems and displays,” said Mark Ortiz, Boeing’s NextSTEP (Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships) program manager.
Boeing officials said Tuesday much of their prototype will build on and enhance the current space station systems.
Some things, of course, will be different because of the location of the lunar gateway. For example, there are higher levels of radiation near the moon compared to what the space station is exposed to in its low Earth orbit. So, astronauts on the lunar gateway will need to have adequate radiation protection, Ortiz said.
Boeing will construct the habitat prototype this summer and fall. In spring 2019, the company will hand over the prototypes to NASA for evaluation.
Work on the power and propulsion element began in November 2017 when NASA selected five companies including Boeing to participate in four-month studies on how to affordably develop it. It will eventually be launched either by the Space Launch System rocket being developed by NASA or by commercial rockets.
Additionally, NASA envisions that resupply missions to the platform would be conducted by commercial entities, and crews would participate in “a variety of deep space exploration and commercial activities in the vicinity of the moon.”
The gateway “will drive our activity with commercial and international partners and help us explore the Moon and its resources,” William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in the NASA web post. “We will ultimately translate that experience toward human missions to Mars.”