NASA prepares Gateway lunar spaceport to manage Moon traffic
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NASA is developing Gateway, the first lunar spaceport, to serve as a staging hub for astronauts, cargo ships, and lunar landers. The station will operate on a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, passing about 1,600 km from the Moon's north pole and swinging out to nearly 64,000 km. Engineers from Texas A&M University, NASA, and Purdue University have created a traffic management system to prevent spacecraft collisions near the station.
Key Facts
- Gateway will be placed on a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, passing about 1,600 km from the Moon's north pole and swinging out to nearly 64,000 km.
- The orbit allows continuous communication with Earth and requires relatively little fuel for station-keeping.
- Engineers from Texas A&M University, NASA, and Purdue University ran thousands of computer simulations to design a traffic management system for spacecraft near Gateway.
- If a docking slot at Gateway is occupied, arriving spacecraft must hold at a calculated distance and wait for an opening, a procedure researchers call loitering.
Gateway Station
Gateway is planned for use in future lunar missions, receiving Orion crew capsules, cargo vehicles, and lunar landers. The station will not have a terminal or runways; instead, it will operate on a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). The NRHO is highly elongated, bringing Gateway within about 1,600 km of the Moon's north pole and then out to nearly 64,000 km from the surface. This orbit enables continuous contact with Earth and requires relatively little propellant for orbital maintenance.
Traffic Management System
Because of the gravitational pull of Earth and the Moon, spacecraft cannot simply park next to each other near Gateway. Engineers from Texas A&M University, NASA, and Purdue University developed a traffic management system for future spacecraft. They ran thousands of computer simulations to test how vehicles can remain near Gateway without interfering with one another. If a docking slot is occupied, an arriving ship must hold at a calculated distance and wait for the right moment to dock or depart. Researchers call this waiting procedure loitering, effectively a form of space parking.
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NASA prepares Gateway lunar spaceport to manage Moon traffic
