As NASA seeks to bring humans back to the lunar surface through its Artemis program, the space agency is adding an international partnership to facilitate sustainable lunar exploration – while demonstrating that a future human mission to Mars is possible.
A collaborative agreement between NASA and the European Space Agency was finalized on Tuesday, and the two agencies will work together on the Artemis Gateway lunar outpost. According to the agency, this is NASA’s first formal formal agreement to land international crew members to the moon during the Artemis mission.
The Artemis Gateway will serve as a way station serving astronauts traveling from Earth before it reaches the surface of the moon.
NASA Administrator Jim Brydenstein said in a statement that the partnership benefits from the cooperation established on the International Space Station as we move toward the moon.
“Gateway will continue to expand NASA’s cooperation with international partners such as ESA, ensuring the results of the Artemis program in the safe and sustainable exploration of the moon after and after the initial human lunar landing.”
How the Artemis program works
The Artemis program relies on a number of assets, including the Orion spacecraft, the gateway, and the space system rocket, known as the SLS. A key feature of the program is static space exploration with reusable spacecraft and architecture, which could later take humans to Mars.
The SLS rocket will send Orion, astronauts and huge cargo to the moon at once, NASA said. And in the future, it could support robotic missions to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
The Orion spacecraft can support four crew members and deep deep-space missions, unlike previous crafts designed for short flights.
Orion Gateway, will dock at a lunar outpost, which will go into orbit around the moon. About 250,000 miles from Earth, the gateway will allow easy access to the entire surface of the moon and potentially deep deep-space exploration.
During the 1st International Astronautical Congress held in early October, eight countries became members of the NASA Artemis Accord.
Those countries include Australia, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Assemble the gateway
According to an agreement reached this week between NASA and the ESA, the European Space Agency will provide modules for habitation, refueling and lunar communications at the gateway. Both agencies will also be responsible for these modules.
The International Housing Module will include Gateway’s environmental control and life support system, additional accommodation for crew and space for workplace and science experiments, both inside and outside. Module.
“The gateway is designed to be complemented by additional capabilities to support sustainable research by our international partners,” said Kathy Luders, NASA’s associate administrator for the Directorate of Human Exploration and Operations at NASA headquarters.
“The gateway will give us access to more lunar surfaces than ever before, and we are delighted that partners like ESA will join us in these underground efforts.”
Like the International Space Station, the gateway will be assembled into orbit. However, it will orbit the moon thousands of miles away from the lunar surface and will be about one-sixth the size of a football field.
In addition to international partners, NASA is also working with commercial partners on gateways and other aspects of the Artemis program.
The gateway will also serve as a hub for science experiments, as the space station has had for 20 years. The first two investigations flying over the gateway have already been selected. Both are essentially two miniature weather stations, one from NASA, called HERMES, And one of the ESAs, known as the ERSA, will monitor space radiation to help astronauts protect and better understand the sun. The name of the NASA station is HERMES, meaning Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite, and ESA’s ERSA is a European radiation sensor array.
“Science will play a crucial role in the Artemis program,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate director of NASA’s science mission directorate. “Between NASA’s Hermes and ESA’s ERSA, these and future payloads at the gateway will help us learn more about space weather and protecting astronauts, as our task of landing commercial payloads on the moon helps lunar science and human exploration on the lunar surface.”
The gateway will also serve as a groundbreaking ground for the technologies needed when planning a human mission to Mars.
Dan Hartman, gateway program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said The Gateway would enable Artemis operations, taking advantage of the unique atmosphere in lunar orbit to serve as a catalyst for research and demonstration of new technologies. .
“ESA’s effective contribution will provide the crew around the moon for a longer period of time and the unique capabilities needed to support its operations.”
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