NASA has ambitious goals to construct a modest space station with several foreign and private partners. The planned outpost, named Lunar Gateway, will serve as a unique platform for scientific research as well as assist missions on and around the Moon. Here are some things to be aware of regarding the impending space station and how it will facilitate the next significant advancement in space exploration.

Humans have visited the moon, space stations have been constructed in low Earth orbit, rovers have been set down on Mars, and spacecraft have even been launched to the furthest regions of our solar system. Amazing, for sure, but there are still a lot of things on the cosmic to-do list, not the least of which is building a station on the Moon. The fact that we still haven’t done so may seem like a major oversight, but that’s where we are right now.

Why is a lunar space station necessary?

NASA has an explanation for developing it now since the Artemis era is coming soon. Well, an excuse is not a suitable term here; with NASA’s proclaimed mission of establishing a permanent human presence at and around the Moon, the creation of a lunar space station is more of a necessity. The Artemis 3 mission is just the beginning for the space agency, which aims to land a man and a woman on the moon by 2026 at the latest.

A pressurized rover, an agile lunar terrain vehicle, and a surface home are the components of the proposed Artemis base camp. The infrastructure that follows will allow us to explore the Moon even more, but the knowledge and skills acquired from these expeditions will help humanity take the next big step forward: a crewed mission to Mars. All of this, however, will be impossible without a lunar space station.

The versatile Lunar Gateway, one-sixth the size of the International Space Station, would provide support for crewed missions to the surface, a platform to carry out science experiments, and a rendezvous point for deploying missions deeper into space, which includes robotic probes to investigate nearby asteroids and comets. Once in lunar orbit, Lunar Gateway “is central to advancing and sustaining human space exploration goals, and is the unifying single stepping off point in our architecture for human cislunar operations [cislunar refers to the region between Earth and Moon], lunar surface access, and missions to Mars,” according to a 2018 memo from NASA.

Where will the Lunar Gateway be situated?

As of right now, Gateway is intended to be positioned in an NRHO, or near-rectilinear halo orbit. The neutral gravity points created by the Earth and the Moon are utilized in this fuel-efficient orbit. The orbital outpost will have a constant line of sight to Earth thanks to NRHO, which is also gravitationally stable. This will enable unhindered communication between the Gateway crew and ground stations back home.

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