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ISS partners plan Lunar Gateway [NASA selects Dragon XL cargo ship]

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  • ISS partners plan Lunar Gateway [NASA selects Dragon XL cargo ship]

    Read: a Gateway Station in a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit around the Moon. Russia prefers a lower orbit for surface ops, but this can be worked out. Maybe the Gateway and a smaller low lunar orbit station inhabited only as required.

    This started under the Obama administration and gave NASA's SLS a near term purpose, but this week NASA's Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Bill Gerstenmaier (aka: "Gerst") made very nice words about using it for large cargoes & Orion and commercial vehicles for most everything else including,

    ULA's Vulcan, SpaceX's Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy, Blue Origin's New Glenn, OrbitalATK's Antares 300 cargo launcher and....drumroll...the ginormous SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System, and the commercial cargo (3 working on 4) and crew (2, working on 3-4) vehicles - showing images of the upcoming US "space fleet."

    Russia would fly their upcoming Federation crew and Federation-derived cargo vehicles. Japan has been working on a very Apollo-like crew/cargo vehicle.

    Anatoly Zak is of www.RussianSpaceWeb.com - great site!

    Could NASA and its international partners construct a space station in orbit around the Moon? Possible designs are being finalized, but the Trump…


    NASA, ISS partners quietly completing design of possible Moon-orbiting space station

    Posted by Anatoly Zak

    2017/03/09 12:00 UTC

    With the Trump administration about to mark its 50th day in office, NASA, for now, continues working on its Obama-era plan to send humans to Mars.

    The centerpiece of that plan includes the "proving ground" in cis-lunar space. After years of behind-the-scenes negotiations, NASA and its International Space Station partners are close to finalizing the architecture of a proposed human outpost in the vicinity of the Moon as early as June or July of this year, according to industry sources familiar with the project.

    Last month, experts from five space agencies held a behind-the-scenes meeting in Tsukuba, Japan, the home of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. In the following few months, the designs for the largest international undertaking in human spaceflight since the ISS will be reviewed by space agencies. Engineers might also begin constructing the first full-scale prototype of the near-lunar habitat here on Earth to assess the ability of proposed modules to support the crew.

    The ISS partners also made a crucial decision in Tsukuba to assemble and operate the proposed cis-lunar station in a so-called Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit, or NRHO. This giant, egg-shaped loop extends 70,000 kilometers from the Moon at its farthest point and comes as close as 1,500 kilometers at the nearest. An NHRO would enable the station to save propellant for orbital corrections and avoids the blocking of sunlight by the Moon from reaching the station’s solar panels, while always keeping the spacecraft within a line of sight to ground controllers on Earth.

    This would also allow NASA’s Orion spacecraft to easily approach—and, in the event of an emergency, rapidly depart—the station. However, vehicles bound for the lunar surface from the NRHO will be taxed in terms of mass and propellant, when compared to orbits closer to the Moon.


    Sample Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbits (NHROs)
    From Davis, D. et. al (2017): Orbit maintenance and navigation of human spacecraft at cislunar Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits

    It would take the station a week to make each revolution around the Moon in such an orbit. Although the NRHO is a primary location for the base, the outpost would still be able to maneuver to other destinations in the future.

    The partners are also said to be on track to finalize their common technical standards for the station as early as April. The critical agreement will make sure that all the hardware and technology needed in the program, such as rendezvous and docking systems, life support, communications, power supply and thermal control gear will work seamlessly and safely for years to come.

    According to the latest design, the station includes a pair of habitation modules built by Europe and Japan, a U.S.-built power and propulsion module, a Russian airlock module and the 8.5-meter Canadian robotic arm. Based on the experience obtained during the ISS program, the life-support system of the cis-lunar station will eventually feature a truly "closed-loop" technology, essentially recycling all its resources, such as waste water and oxygen.
    >
    >
    Assembly of the station is currently proposed to begin with the third flight of Orion around 2023. The first logistics flight for the cis-lunar outpost might be required between 2024 and 2025, sources said.
    Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 11 March 2017, 01:21.
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

  • #2
    And here we go,

    Assuming SLS survives, they place 2 hardshell habitats in either the near rectilinear lunar orbit the US prefers or a distant retrograde lunar orbit, both very stable.

    Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust)
    Gerst: establish a deep space gateway in cislunar space for crews with 2 SLS missions (EM-2 and 3), using secondary payload capacity.

    https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/statu...57619782049792
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

    Comment


    • #3
      The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) configuration as of July 5, 2018.

      The US Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) is boarded to go up in 2022 aboard a "commercial vehicle" rather than the much delayed Space Launch System (SLS).

      JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), Canada and Russia are in. Reports say JAXA and ESA are considering Falcon Heavy for their launches.

      About 2019-2020 US human exploration plans will firm up, largely because of several new spacecraft and launchers coming into service.

      Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 26 August 2018, 01:23.
      Dr. Mordrid
      ----------------------------
      An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

      I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

      Comment


      • #4
        Renamed again: Lunar Gateway

        NASA has also solicited services and lunar landers under a new program: Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS.)

        SpaceX, Blue,Origin, Lockheed and others are to offer lunar lander designs, including crewed lunar landers

        and the Canadians are in

        https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/c...eway-1.5037522

        Canada's heading to the moon: A look at the Lunar Gateway

        Government has earmarked $2.05B over 24 years for space program
        >
        "There will be several components to the Gateway: habitation modules, that will hold up to four astronauts anywhere from 30 to 90 days; a science module, a sample return vehicle and, of course the robotic arm, which will be Canadian-built and called Canadarm 3."


        >
        Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 28 February 2019, 23:15.
        Dr. Mordrid
        ----------------------------
        An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

        I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

        Comment


        • #5
          NASA renamed the SLS/Orion lunar program to "Artemis," and is bringing in commercial entities to supply the Gateway, land payloads and people on the Moon, etc.

          Blue Moon is Blue Origin's cargo lander, which has an upgrade path to landing a crew of 4. It'll fly on their New Glenn launcher, which has its maiden launch in 2021/22.

          SpaceX is also in,

          Stephen Clark @StephenClark1 (SpaceflightNow)

          SpaceX’s Koenigsmann: We have Falcon Heavy as the product for cargo services in support of NASA’s Artemis program. Falcon 9 will soon be able to provide crew transportation, too. Then we'll phase in new vehicles like Starship.

          Dr. Mordrid
          ----------------------------
          An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

          I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

          Comment


          • #6
            SpaceX gets a single-source NASA contract to haul Lunar Gateway cargo using a new vehicle launched using Falcon Heavy:

            Dragon XL, or DXL

            NASA has selected SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, as the first U.S. commercial provider under the Gateway Logistics Services contract to deliver cargo,


            1585357827744.jpg

            1) for now, SpaceX is a single provider for cargo

            2) it'll launch inside a fairing

            3) 6-12 month missions with tele-operable internal & external experiments

            4) no return cargo at first, but this may be added later

            5) Dragon XL will deliver the Gateway's Canadarm

            6) “So there’s no question that Gateway is part of that plan, and I think what we’re doing with Gateway makes sure that it does not get threatened by future cuts — or future budget overruns, more likely — on human landers, or Space Launch Systems, and Orion capsules, and those kind of things,”
            ~~ Doug Loverro, AA Human Exploration and Operations,

            Dragon XL may have been outed in prior NASA concept art

            NASA Gateway+DXL (maybe).jpg

            Independent concept art by @Caspar_Stanley

            1585458957875.jpg

            IMG_20200329_011022.jpg
            Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 29 March 2020, 17:12.
            Dr. Mordrid
            ----------------------------
            An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

            I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

            Comment


            • #7
              This will likely need Falcon Heavy's extended fairing.

              NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Power and Propulsion Element


              NASA Awards Contract to Launch Initial Elements for Lunar Outpost
              NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the foundational elements of the Gateway. As the first long-term orbiting outpost around the Moon, the Gateway is critical to supporting sustainable astronauts missions under the agency’s Artemis program.

              After integration on Earth, the PPE and HALO are targeted to launch together no earlier than May 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
              >
              Dr. Mordrid
              ----------------------------
              An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

              I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

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