Gateway
The space Gateway is an international outpost to be built around the Moon.
During the 2020s, the spaceship will be assembled and operated in lunar orbit, where it will allow for the most distant human space missions ever attempted.
Placed farther from Earth than the International Space Station the Gateway will offer a staging post for missions to the Moon. Its flight path is a highly-elliptical orbit – bringing it both relatively close to the Moon’s surface but also far away making it easier to pick up astronauts and supplies from Earth – around a five-day trip.
Like a mountain refuge, it will provide shelter and a place to stock up on supplies for astronauts en route to more distant destinations. The spaceship will also offer a place to relay communications and act as a base for scientific research.
The Gateway will weigh around 40 tonnes and will consist of a service module, a communications module, a connecting module, an airlock for spacewalks, a place for the astronauts to live and an operations station to command the Gateway’s robotic arm or rovers on the Moon. Astronauts will be able to occupy it for up to 90 days at a time.
Close to the Moon and more
A staging outpost near the Moon offers many advantages for space agencies. Most current rockets do not have the power to reach our satellite in one go but could reach the space Gateway. Europe’s Ariane would be able to deliver supplies for astronauts to collect and use for further missions deeper into space – much like mountain expeditions can stock up refuges with food and equipment for further climbs to the summit.
The Gateway also allows space agencies to test technologies such as electric propulsion where Earth’s gravity would interfere if done closer to home. New opportunities for space research away from Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere are planned for the outpost. Its close position will provide rapid response times for astronauts controlling rovers on the Moon.
The Gateway’s first modules, NASA's power and propulsion element and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, will be launched together flying on their own. The outpost’s next module will arrive on the Artemis IV mission with Orion, I-Hab. Orion and its European Service Module will deliver ESA's Esprit module on the next mission, Artemis V.
The first science instruments for Gateway include the Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES) and the European Radiation Sensors Array (ERSA) that will fly outside Gateway to monitor the Sun’s radiation environment and space weather.
Facts and figures
- Mass: 40 tonnes
- Orbit: near rectilinear halo
- Modules:
- Power and Propulsion Element
- Communications module and connecting module (ESPRIT)
- Science and airlock module
- Habitat with robotic arm
- Logistics module